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A TRAMP THROUGH 

THE BRET HARTE 

COUNTRY 




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"t^ 23 o m 

P^ "^ X 



A TRAMP 

THROUGH THE BRET 

HARTE COUNTRY 

BY 

THOMAS DYKES BEASLEY 

AUTHOR OF "THE COMING OF PORTOLA" 

WITH A FOREWORD BY 

CHARLES A. MURDOCK 



Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting. 

The river sang below; 

The dim Sierras, far heyondy uplifting 

Their minarets of snow. 

•^Dickena in Camp. 



PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS SAN FRANCISCO 






\ * 



Copyright, 1914 

PAUL ELDER & COMPANY 



MAY i-n'9l4 

©CI,A371769 



THE CHAPTERS 

PAGE 

Foreword VII 

Preface XI 

Reminiscences of Bret Harte. "Plain Language 
From Truthful James." The Glamour of the Old 
Mining Towns 3 

Inception of the Tramp. Stockton to Angel's Camp, 

Tuttletown and the "Sage of Jackass Hill" . 8 

Tuolumne to Placerville. Charm of Sonora and Fas- 
cination of San Andreas and Mokelumne HiU . 16 

J. H. Bradlej and the Cary House. Ruins of 
Coloma. James W. Marshall and His Pathetic 
End 32 

Auburn to Nevada City Via Colfax and Grass Val- 
ley. Ben Taylor and His Home . . .41 

E. W. Maslin and His Recollections of Pioneer Days 

in Grass Valley. Origin of Our Mining Laws . 56 

Grass Valley to Smartsville. Sucker Flat and Its 

Personal Appeal 70 

Smartsville to Marysville. Some Reflections on 

Automobiles and "Hoboes" 79 

Bayard Taylor and the California of Forty-nine. Bret 

Harte and His Literary Pioneer Contemporaries 89 



III 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE 

Buins of Coloma, a Name "Forever Associated 
With the Wildest Scramble for Gold the World 
Has Ever Seen" . . . Frontispiece I- 

Map of the "Bret Harte Country," Showing the 
Route Taken by the Writer, With the Towns, 
Important Rivers, and County Boundaries of 
the Country Traversed . . Page xv ^ 

The Tuttletown Hotel, Tuttletown; a Wooden 
Building Erected in the Early Fifties 
Facing page 14 11*^ 

Mokelumne River ; "Whatever the Meaning of the 
Indian Name, One May Rest Assured It Stands 
for Some Form of Beauty" . Facing page ^6 III " 

"A Mining Convention at Placerville" 

Facing page 34 IV ' 

South Fork of the American River, Coloma. The 
Bend in the River Is the Precise Spot Where 
Gold Was First Discovered in California ^ 
Facing page 38 V 

Ben Taylor and His Home, Grass Valley, Showing 
the Spruce He Planted Nearly Half a Century 
Ago Facing page 50 VI' 

E. W. Maslin in the Garden of His Alameda 

Home .... Facing page 64 VII * 

Angel's Hotel, Angel's Camp, Erected in 1852, 
as Was the Wells Fargo Building Which 
Faces It Across the Street . Following page 96 VIII *' 

Main Hoist of the Utica Mine, Angel's Camp, 
Situated on the Summit of a Hill Overlooking 
the Town IX 

The Stanislaus River, Near Tuttletown, "Running 

in a Deep and Splendid Canon" ... X ' 

Jackass Hill, Tuttletown. The Road to the Left 

Leads to the Former Home of "Jim" Gillis . XI v 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 

Home of Mrs. Swerer, Tuttletown. The Hotel 

and This Dwelling Comprise All That Is Hab- ^ 

itable of the Tuttletown of Bret Harte . . XII "' 

Main Street, Sonora, "So Shaded by Trees That 

Buildings Are Half -hidden" .... XIII ^ 

Sonora, Looking Southeast. "No Matter From 

What Direction You Approach It, Sonora . 

Seems to Lie Basking in the Sun". . . XIV 

Main Street, San Andreas, "During the Mid-day 

Heat, Almost Deserted" XV -^ 

Metropolitan Hotel, San Andreas ; in the Bar-room 
of Which Occurred the "Jumping Frog" Inci- 
dent XVI' 

Mokelumne Hotel, on the Summit of Mokelumne 
Hill, and at the Head of the Famous Chili 
Gulch XVIL 

Placerville, the County Seat of El Dorado County, 

From the Eoad to Diamond Springs . . XVIII' 

The Cary House, Placerville. "It Was Here That 
Horace Greeley Terminated His Celebrated 
Stage Ride With Hank Monk" . . . XIX"^ 

Middle Fork of the American Eiver, Near Auburn, 
and Half a Mile Above Its Junction With the 
North Fork XX' 

An Apple Orchard, Grass Valley, "the Trees 
Growing in the Grass, as in England and the 
Atlantic States" XXI 

The Western Hotel, Grass Valley. "The Well and 

Pump Add a Quaint and Characteristic Touch" XXII 

A Bit of Picturesque Nevada City, Embracing the 

Homes of Its Leading Citizens . . . XXIII " 



VI 



FOREWORD 

/'N California's imaginary Hall of Fame, 
Bret Harte must be accorded a promi- 
nent, if not first place. His short stories 
and dialect poems published fifty years ago 
made California ivell known the tvorld over 
and gave it a romantic interest conceded 
no other community. He saw the pictur- 
esque and he made the world see it. His 
power is unaccountable if ive deny him 
genius. He was essentially an artist. His 
imagination gave him vision, a neiv life in 
a beautiful setting supplied colors and rare 
literary skill painted the picture. 

His capacity for absorption was marvel- 
ous. At the age of about twenty he spent 
less than a year in the foot-hills of the 
Sierras, among pioneer miners, and forty- 
five years of literary output did not exhaust 
his impressions. He somewhere refers to 
an ^^ eager absorption of the strange life 
around me, and a photographic sensitive- 
ness to certain scenes and incidents.' ' 
''Eager absorption,'' ''photographic sensi- 
tiveness," a rich imagination and a fine 
literary style, largely due to his mother, 
enabled him to win at his death this 
acknowledgment from the "London Spec- 

VII 



FOREWORD 

tator:'' ''No writer of the present day has 
struck so powerful and original a note as 
he has sounded.'' 

Francis Bret Harte ivas horn in Albany, 
New York, August 25, 1836. His father 
was a teacher and translator ; his mother 
a ivoman of high character and cultivated 
tastes. His father having died, he, when 
nine, became an office boy and later a clerk. 
In 1854 he came to California to join his 
mother who had married again, arriving in 
Oakland in March of that year. His em- 
ployment for two years was desultory. He 
worked in a drug store and also wrote for 
Eastern magazines. Then he went to Alamo 
in the San Ramon Valley as tutor — a valued 
experience. Later in 1856 he went to Tuol- 
umne County where, among other things, he 
taught school, and may have been an ex- 
press messenger. At any rate, he stored 
his memory tvith material that ten years 
later made him and the whole region 
famous. 

In 1857 he went to Humboldt County 
where his sister was living. He was an 
interesting figure, gentlemanly, fastidious, 
reserved, sensitive, with a good fund of 
humor, a pleasant voice and a modest man- 
ner. He seemed poorly fitted for anything 
that needed doing. He was willing, for I 

VIII 



FOREWORD 

saw Mm digging post holes and building 
a fence with results someivhat unsatisfac- 
tory. He was more successful as tutor for 
two of my hoy friends. He finally became 
printers* devil in the office of the "North- 
ern Californian/' where he learned the 
case, and incidentally contributed graceful 
verse and clever prose. 

He returned to San Francisco early in 
1860 and found work on the "Golden Era/' 
at first as compositor and soon as writer. 
In May, 1864, he left the "Golden Era'' 
and joined others in starting "The Cali- 
fornian." Two months later he was made 
editor of the new "Overland Monthly." 
The second number contained "The Luck 
of Roaring Camp." It attracted ivide at- 
tention as a new note. Other stories and 
poems of merit folloived. Harte's growing 
reputation burst in full bloom when in 1870 
he filled a blank space in the "Overland" 
make-up with "The Heathen Chinee." It 
was quoted on the floor of the Senate and 
gained world-ivide fame. He received flat- 
tering offers and felt constrained to accept 
the best. In February, 1871, he left Cali- 
fornia. A Boston publisher had offered 
him $10,000 for whatever he might write 
in the following year. Harte accepted, but 
the output tvas small. 



FOEEWORD 

For seven years he wrote spasmodically, 
eking out his income by lecturing and neivs- 
paper ivorh. Life was hard. In 1878 he 
sailed for Europe, having been appointed 
considar agent at Crefeld, Prussia, about 
forty miles north of Cologne. In 1880 he 
was made Consul at Glasgow, where he re- 
mained five years. His home thereafter 
was London, where he continued his lit- 
erary ivork until his death in March, 1902. 

His complete ivorks comprise riineteen 
volumes. His patriotic verse is fervid, his 
idyls are gracefid and his humorous verse 
delightfid. The short story he made anew. 

Harte's instincts and habits were good. 
He had the artistic temperament and some 
of its incidental iveaknesses. He acknowl- 
edged himself ''constitutionally improvi- 
dent,' ' and a debt-burdened life is not easy. 
His later years were pathetic. Those who 
knew and appreciated him remember him 
fondly. California failing to know him, 
wrongs herself. 

Charles A. Murdock. 



PREFACE 

A DESIRE to obtain, at first handy 
^^^ any possible information in regard 
to reminiscences of Bret Harte, Mark 
Tivain and others of the little coterie of 
writers, who in the early fifties visited the 
mining camps of California and through 
stories that have become classics, played 
a prominent part in making ^* California" 
a synonym for romance, led to undertaking 
the tramp of which this brief narrative is 
a record. The ivriter met with unexpected 
success, having the good fortune to meet 
men, all over eighty years of age, who had 
knoivn — in some cases intimately — Bret 
Harte, Mark Twain, ^'Dan de Quille," 
Prentice Mulford, Bayard Taylor and 
Horace Greeley. 

It seems imperative that a relation of 
individual experiences — however devoid of 
stirring incident and adventure — should be 
written in the first person. At the same 
time, the writer of this unpretentious story 
of a summer's tramp cannot but feel that 
he owes his readers — should he have any — 
an apology for any avoidable egotism. His 
excuse is that, notwithstanding the glamour 
attaching to the old mining towns, it is al- 

XI 



PREFACE 

most incredible how little is known of them 
by the average Calif ornian; for the East- 
ern tourist there is more excuse, since the 
foot-hills of the Sierras lie outside the 
beaten tracks of travel. He has, therefore, 
assumed that "a plain unvarnished tale" 
of actual experiences might not be tvithout 
interest to the casual reader; arid possibly 
might incite in him a desire to see for 
himself a country not only possessed of 
rare beauty, but absolutely unique in its 
associations. 

But the point to be emphasized is that 
the glamour is not a thing of the past: it 
is there now. Nay, to a person possessed 
of any imagination, the ruins — say, of 
Coloma — appeal in all probability far 
stronger than would the actual town itself 
in the days ivhen it seethed ivith bustle and 
excitement. Not to have visited the old 
mining towns is not to have seen the 
*' heart" of California, or felt its pulsa- 
tions. It is not to understand why the very 
name ** California" still stirs the blood and 
excites the imagination throughout the civ- 
ilized ivorld. 

If this brief narrative should induce any- 
one to ^^ gird up his loins," shoulder his 
pack and essay a similar pilgrimage, the 
author will feel that he has not been unre- 

xn 



PREFACE 

warded. And if a man over threescore 
years of age can tramp through seven 
counties and return, in spite of intense 
heat J feeling better and stronger than when 
he started, a young fellow in the hey-day 
of life and sound of wind and limb surely 
ought not to he discouraged, 

Thomas Dykes Beasley. 



xin 



fifnwi ^/^fffHi^ ff99^$^ 




Map of the "Bret Harte Country," 

Showing the Route Taken by the Writer, 

Together With the Towns, Important 

Rivers, and County Boundaries of 

the Country Traversed 



XV 



A TRAMP THROUGH 

THE BRET HARTE 

COUNTRY 



CHAPTER I 

REMINISCENCES OF BRET 

HARTE/TLAIN LANGUAGE FROM 

TRUTHFUL JAMES." THE 

GLAMOUR OF THE OLD 

MINING TOWNS 

IT IS forty-four years since the writer 
met the author of * * The Luck of Eoar- 
ing Camp ' ' — that wonderful blending 
within the limits of a short story of 
humor, pathos and tragedy — which, in- 
credible as it may seem, met with but a 
cold reception from the local press, and 
was even branded as '^ndecenf and '* im- 
modest ! ^ ' 

On the occasion referred to, I was 
strolling on Rincon Hill — at that time the 
fashionable residence quarter of San Fran- 
cisco — in company with Mr. J. H. Wildes, 
whose cousin, the late Admiral Frank 
Wildes, achieved fame in the battle of 
Manila Bay. Mr. Wildes called my atten- 
tion to an approaching figure and said: 
'^Here comes Bret Harte, a man of un- 
usual literary ability. He is having a hard 
struggle now, but only needs the oppor- 
tunity, to make a name for himself.'* 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

That opportunity arrived almost imme- 
diately. In the September number of the 
Overland Monthly, 1870, of which maga- 
zine Mr. Harte was then editor, appeared 
*^ Plain Language from Truthful James,'' 
or ^^The Heathen Chinee," as the poem 
was afterwards called. A few weeks later, 
to my amazement, while turning the pages 
of Punch in the Mercantile Library, I 
came across ^'The Heathen Chinee;" an 
unique compliment so far as my recollec- 
tion of Punch serves. To this generous 
and instantaneous recognition of genius 
may be attributed in no small measure the 
rapid distinction won by Bret Harte in the 
world of letters. 

Mr. Harte read his ^^ Heathen Chinee" to 
Mrs. Wildes, some time before it was pub- 
lished. This lady, a woman of brilliant 
attainments and one who had a host of 
friends in old San Francisco, possessed 
the keenest sense of humor. Mr. Harte 
greatly valued her critical judgment. He 
was in the habit of reading his stories and 
poems to her for her opinion and decision, 
before publication, and it may well be that 
her hearty laughter and warm approval 
helped to strengthen his wavering opinion 
of the lines which convulsed Anglo-Saxon- 
dom; for no one was more surprised than 

4 



REMINISCENCES OF BRET HARTE 

he at the sensation they created. He had 
even offered the poem for publication to 
Mr. Ambrose Bierce, then editing the San 
Francisco News Letter; but Mr. Bierce, 
recognizing its merit, returned it to Mr. 
Harte and prevailed upon him to publish 
it in his own magazine. 

Had one at that time encountered Mr. 
Harte in Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue, he 
would simply have been aware of a man 
dressed in perfect taste, but in the height 
of the prevailing fashion. On the streets 
of San Francisco, however, Bret Harte was 
always a notable figure, from the fact that 
the average man wore '' slops, ^' devoid 
alike of style or cut, and usually of shiny 
broadcloth. Broad-brimmed black felt hats 
were the customary headgear, completing a 
most funereal costume. 

Mr. Harte impressed me as being singu- 
larly modest and utterly devoid of any 
form of affectation. To be well dressed 
in a period when little attention was paid 
to clothes by the San Franciscan, might, 
it is true, in some men have suggested as- 
sumption of an air of superiority ; but with 
Mr. Harte, to dress well was simply a nat- 
ural instinct. His long, drooping mous- 
tache and the side-whiskers of the time — 
incongruous as the comparison may seem 

5 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

— called to mind the elder Sothern as 
*^Lord Dundreary." His natural expres- 
sion was pensive, even sad. When one 
considers that pathos and tragedy, perhaps 
even more than humor, pervade his stories, 
that was not surprising. 

I had but recently arrived from England 
— a mere lad. California was still the land 
of gold and romance; the glamour with 
which Bret Harte surrounded both, tliat 
bids fair to be immortal, held me en- 
thralled. Angel's, Rough and Ready, 
Sandy Bar, Poker Flat, Placerville, Tuol- 
umne and old Sonora represented to me 
enchanted ground. Fate and life's vicissi- 
tudes prevented, except in imagination, a 
knowledge of the Sierra foot-hill counties ; 
but in the back of my head all these years 
had persisted a determination to, at some 
time, visit a region close to the heart of 
every old Californian, and what better way 
than on foot? 

In spite of Pullman cars and automobiles 
— or, rather, perhaps on account of them — 
the only way to see a country, to get into 
touch with Nature and meet the inhabi- 
tants on the dead level of equality and 
human sympathy, is to use Nature's 
method of locomotion. Equipped with a 
stout stick — with a view to dogs — a fold- 



REMINISCENCES OF BRET HARTE 

ing kodak camera, and your ^' goods and 
chattels" slung in a haversack across your 
shoulders, you feel independent of time- 
cards and ^^ routes;'' and sally forth into 
the world with the philosophical determina- 
tion to take things as they come; keyed to 
a pleasurable pitch of excitement by the 
knowledge that ^^ Adventure" walks with 
you hand-in-hand, and that the ^ ^ humors of 
the road" are yours for the seeing and 
understanding. 



CHAPTER II 

INCEPTION OF THE TRAMP. 

STOCKTON TO ANGEL'S CAMP. 

TUTTLETOWN AND THE 

"SAGE OF JACKASS HILL" 

FOLLOWING as near as might be the 
route of the old Argonauts, I 
avoided trains, and on a warm 
summer night boarded the Stock- 
ton boat. In the early morning you are 
aware of slowly rounding the curves of the 
San Joaquin River. Careful steering was 
most essential, as owing to the dry season 
the river was unusually low. The vivid 
greens afforded by the tules and willows 
that fringe the river banks, and the occa- 
sional homestead surrounded by trees, with 
its little landing on the edge of the levee, 
should delight the eye of the artist. 

I lost no time in Stockton and headed 
for Milton in the foot-hills, just across the 
western boundary of Calaveras County. 
The distance was variously estimated by 
the natives at from twenty to forty miles — 
Californians are careless about distances, 
as in other matters. Subsequently I en- 
tered it in my note book as a long twenty- 

8 



STOCKTON TO ANGEL S CAMP 

eight. Eighteen miles out from Stockton, 
at a place called Peters, which is little 
more than a railway junction, you leave 
the cultivated land and enter practically 
a desert country, destitute of water, trees, 
undergrowth and with but a scanty growth 
of grass. I ate my lunch at the little store 
and noted with apprehension that the ther- 
mometer registered 104 degrees in the 
shaded porch. I am not likely to forget 
that pull of ten miles and inwardly con- 
fessed to a regret that I had not taken the 
train to Milton. Accustomed on ^ ^hikes'' 
to a thirst not surpassed by anything **east 
of Suez,'' I never before appreciated the 
significance of the word ^^ parched" — the 
^ ^tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth. ' ' 
At Milton one enters the land of ro- 
mance. What was even more appreciable 
at the time, it marks the limit of the in- 
hospitable country I had traversed. Mr. 
Robert Donner, the proprietor of the Mil- 
ton Hotel, told me he once had *^ Black 
Bart" as his guest for over a week, being- 
unaware at the time of his identity. This 
famous bandit in the early eighties ^^held 
up" the Yosemite stage time and again. 
In fact, he terrorized the whole Sierra 
country from Redding to Sacramento. He 
was finally captured in San Francisco 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

through a clew obtained from a laundry 
mark on a pair of white cuffs. For years, 
Mr. Donner cherished a boot left by the 
highwayman in the hurry of departure, 
which, much to his annoyance, was finally 
abstracted by some person unknown. To 
dispose of Black Bart; he served his term 
and was never seen again in the Sierras. 
There is a rumor that Wells Fargo & Com- 
pany, the chief sufferers by his activities, 
made it worth his while to behave himself 
in the future. 

The following day I reached Copper- 
opolis. This place very justly has the 
reputation of being one of the hottest spots 
in the foot-hills. Owing to resumed opera- 
tions on a large scale, of the Calaveras 
Copper Company, I found the little settle- 
ment crowded to its fullest capacity, and 
was perforce compelled to resort to gen- 
uine **hobo'' methods — in short, I spent 
the night under the lee of a haystack. My 
original intention had been to walk thence 
to Sonora, twenty-four miles; but finding 
the road would take me again into the val- 
ley, I decided to make for AngePs Camp, 
only thirteen miles away. 

It is uphill nearly all the way from Cop- 
peropolis to Angel's Camp, but mostly you 
are in the pine woods. My spirits rose with 

10 



the altitude and delight at the magnificent 
view when I at last reached the summit. 
Toiling up the grade in the dust, I met a 
good old-fashioned four-horse Concord 
stage, which from all appearances might 
have been in action ever since the days of 
Bret Harte. At last I felt I was in touch 
with the Sierras. The driver even honored 
my bow with an abrupt ^ 'Howdy!'' which 
from such a magnate, I took to be a good 
omen. 

In common with all the old mining towns 
— though I was unaware of it at the time — 
AngePs, as it is usually called, is situated 
in the ravine where gold was first discov- 
ered. It straggles down the gulch for a 
mile and a half. There are a number of 
pretty cottages clinging to the steep hill- 
sides, surrounded with flowers and trees, 
the whole effect being extremely pleasing. 
I registered at the Angel's Hotel, built in 
1852. Across the street is the Wells Fargo 
building, erected about the same time and 
of solid stone, as is the hotel. Nothing on 
this trip surprised me more than the solid- 
ity of the hotels and stores built in the early 
fifties. Instead of the flimsy wooden struc- 
tures I had imagined, I found, for the 
most part, thick stone walls. It was evi- 
dent the pioneers believed in the per- 
il 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

manence of the gold deposits in the Mother 
Lode. Possibly they were right; Angel's 
is anything but a dead town to-day. The 
Utica, AngePs and Lightner mines give 
employment to hundreds of men. 

In the afternoon I visited the Bret Harte 
Girls' High School. It is a very simple 
frame building, on the summit of a hill 
overlooking the town. The man who di- 
rected me how to find it, I discovered had 
not the remotest idea who Bret Harte 
might be; *^John Brown'' would have an- 
swered the purpose equally as well. In 
fact, all through the seven counties I 
traversed — Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador, 
El Dorado, Placer, Nevada and Yuba — I 
found Bret Harte had left but a hazy and 
nebulous impression. Mark Twain, Pren- 
tice Mulford, Horace Greeley, Bayard 
Taylor, even ' ' Dan de Quille, ' ' seemed bet- 
ter known. 

The next morning I started for Sonora. 
In seven miles I came to the Stanislaus 
Eiver, running in a deep and splendid 
canon. The river here is spanned by a 
fine concrete bridge, built jointly by Tuol- 
umne and Calaveras Counties, between 
which the river forms the dividing line. 
In the bottom of the canon is the Melones 
mine, with a mill operating one hundred 

12 



STOCKTON TO ANGELAS CAMP 

stamps. The main tunnel is a mile and a 
half in length ; the longest mining tunnel in 
the State, I was told. 

A steep pull of two miles out of the 
canon brought me to Tuttletown. Here I 
stayed several hours, for the interest of 
the whole trip, so far as Bret Harte was 
concerned, centered around this once cele- 
brated camp, and Jackass Hill, on which, 
at one time, lived James W. Gillis, the sup- 
posed prototype of ^^ Truthful James. '^ He 
died a few years ago, but his brother, 
Stephen R. Gillis, is living there to-day, 
and after some little difficulty I succeeded 
in finding his house. 

Mr. Gillis scouts the idea that his brother 
^^ Jim" was the '^Truthful James'' of Bret 
Harte. He said that in reality it was J. W. 
E. Townsend, known in old times as ** Al- 
phabetical Townsend, ' ' also by the uncom- 
plimentary appellation of ^' Lying Jim.'* 
According to Mr. Gillis, Bret Harte made 
but one visit to Tuttletown. He arrived 
there one evening ^*dead broke" and 
James put him up for the night and lent 
him money to help him on his way. Per- 
sonally, Mr. Gillis never met Bret Harte 
but he had seen Mark Twain on a number 
of occasions. I got the distinct impression 
that Stephen Gillis disliked the notoriety 

13 



A TEAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

his brother had gained, through the fact 
that his name had become indissolubly 
linked with the ^'Truthful James'' of Bret 
Harte's verses. Be that as it may, I later 
on met several men who had known ^ ' Jim ' ' 
Gillis intimately and they all agreed that 
he possessed a keen sense of humor and 
had at command a practically inexhaust- 
ible stock of stories, upon which he drew 
at will. Whether Bret Harte derived any 
inspiration from ^^Jim" Gillis may per- 
haps always remain in doubt; but that 
Mark Twain did, there cannot, I think, be 
any question. 

In a recent life of Bret Harte, by Henry 
Childs Merwin, it is stated (page 21) that 
in 1858 Bret Harte acted as tutor in a 
private family at Alamo, in the San Eamon 
valley, which lies at the foot of Mount 
Diablo. On page 50, however, we read: 
*^In 1858 or thereabouts, Bret Harte was 
teaching school at Tuttletown, a few miles 
north of Sonora. ' ' It would seem that this 
statement is erroneous, apart from the fact 
that it conflicts with the prior date in refer- 
ence to Alamo. 

Mrs. Swerer, who has lived continuously 
at Tuttletown since 1850, coming there at 
the age of ten, told me she received her 
education at the Tuttletown public school, 

14 




um 3 

fC J3- IT'-. C 



a — 
flr<5 



STOCKTON TO ANGEL S CAMP 

as did her children and her children's 
children — she is now a great-grandmother ! 
She said most positively that she never 
saw Bret Harte in her life, but had fre- 
quently seen ^'Dan de Quille^' and Mark 
Twain. The latter, she said, made periodic 
visits to Tuttletown, and always stayed 
with ''Jim'' Gillis — called by Twain, the 
''Sage of Jackass Hill." 

Mrs. Gross, who keeps the Tuttletown 
Hotel and whose husband owned a store 
across the way, built of stone but now in 
ruins, was born in Tuttletown. She as- 
serted she never heard of Bret Harte being 
in Tuttletown and feels it to be impossible 
he ever taught school there. At this an- 
cient hostelry, built of wood and dating 
back to the early fifties, I dined in com- 
pany with an old miner, who told me he 
came across "Jim" Gillis in Alaska. He 
said: "Gillis was a great josher. For the 
life of me, I could never tell from his stories 
whether he had been to the Klondike or 
not." 



15 



CHAPTER III 

TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE. 
CHARM OF SONORA AND FAS- 
CINATION OF SAN ANDREAS 
AND MOKELUMNE HILL 

SONORA is nine miles distant from Tut- 
tletown, and I reached it in the early 
I afternoon. Perhaps of all the old 
mining towns, Sonora is the most 
fascinating, on account of the exceeding 
beauty of the surrounding country. No 
matter from what direction you approach 
it, Sonora seems to lie basking in the sun, 
buried in a wealth of greenery, through 
which gleam white walls and roofs of 
houses. Even its winding streets are so 
shaded by graceful old trees that buildings 
are half hidden. The bustle and excite- 
ment of the mining days are passed for- 
ever, in all probability, for old Sonora; 
but in their place have come the peace and 
quiet that accompany the tillage of the 
soil; for Sonora is now the center of a 
prosperous agricultural district and the 
town maintains a steady and continuous 
growth. 

Here I had the pleasure of an interview 
with Mr. John Neal, a prominent and re- 

16 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

spected citizen of Tuolumne County, who 
as Commissioner represented his county at 
the San Francisco Midwinter Fair. Mr. 
Neal is over eighty, but still hale and 
hearty. He was the first person I had thus 
far encountered who had known Bret Harte 
in the flesh. He had also known and fre- 
quently met Mark Twain, ^'Dan de Quille'' 
and Prentice Mulford. Of the four, it was 
evident that Mulford had left by far the 
most lasting as well as favorable impres- 
sion on his mind. Of him he spoke in 
terms of real affection. *^ Prentice Mul- 
ford,'' he said, ^^was a brilliant, very hand- 
some and most lovable young man.'' I 
asked him how these young men were re- 
garded by the miners. He said: '^In all 
the camps they were held to be in a class 
by themselves, on account of their educa- 
tion and literary ability. Although they 
wore the rough costume of the miners, it 
was realized that none of them took min- 
ing seriously or made any pretense of real 
work with pick and shovel." Mr. Neal 
knew James Gillis intimately and admitted 
he was a great story-teller. In fact, at 
the bare mention of his name he broke into 
a hearty laugh. ^ ' Oh, Jim Gillis, he was a 
great fellow!" he exclaimed. He said un- 
questionably Mark Twain got a good deal 

17 



A TEAMP THKOUGH THE BEET HAETE COUNTBY 

of material from him, and feels certain that 
Bret Harte must have met him at least 
on several occasions. Mr. Neal stated 
that up to the time of the Midwinter 
Fair, the output of gold from Tuolumne 
county reached the astonishing figures of 
$250,000,000! What it has amounted to 
since that time, I had no means of ascer- 
taining. 

It is only twelve miles from Sonora to 
Tuolumne. From the top of the divide 
which separates the valleys there is a beau- 
tiful view of the surrounding country, the 
dim blue peaks of the Sierra Nevada form- 
ing the eastern sky-line. One of the chief 
charms of an excursion through these foot- 
hill counties is the certainty that directly 
you reach any considerable elevation there 
will be revealed a magnificent panorama, 
bounded only by the limit of vision, range 
after range of mountains running up in 
varying shades of blue and purple, to the 
far distant summits that indicate the back- 
bone of California. 

Tuolumne is situated in a circular basin 
rather than in a valley, and thus being pro- 
tected from the wind, in hot weather the 
heat is intense. If there are any mining 
operations in the immediate vicinity, they 
are not in evidence to the casual observer. 

18 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

It is, however, one of the biggest timber 
camps in the State. In the yards of the 
West Side Lumber Company, covering sev- 
eral hundred acres, are stacked something 
like 30,000,000 feet of sugar pine. The 
logs are brought from the mountains 
twenty to twenty-five miles by rail, and 
sawn into lumber at Tuolumne. I was told 
that the bulk of the lumber manufactured 
here was shipped abroad, a great deal 
going to Australia. 

Tuolumne, in Bret Harte's time, was 
called Summersville. It was destroyed by 
fire about fourteen years ago, but the new 
town has already so assimilated itself to 
the atmosphere of its surroundings, that its 
comparative youth might easily escape de- 
tection. Altogether, I was disappointed 
with Tuolumne, having expected to find a 
second AngePs, owing to its prominence 
in Bret Harte's stories. A lumber camp, 
while an excellent thing in its way, is 
neither picturesque nor inspiring. I spent 
the night at the ^^ Turnback Inn,'' a large 
frame building, handsomely finished in- 
teriorly and built since the fire. It is, I be- 
lieve, quite a summer resort, as Tuolumne 
is the terminus of the Sierra Eailway, and 
one can go by way of Stockton direct to 
Oakland and San Francisco. 

19 



A TBAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

Eeturning to AngePs the next day, I 
lingered again at Tuttletown. There is a 
strange attraction about the place — it 
would hold you apart from its associations. 
The old hotel, fast going to decay, sur- 
rounded by splendid trees whose shade is 
so dense as to be impenetrable to the noon- 
day sun, is a study for an artist. And as 
I gazed in a sort of day-dream at the ruins 
of what once was one of the liveliest camps 
in the Sierras — with four faro tables run- 
ning day and night — the pines seemed to 
whisper a sigh of regret over its departed 
glories. Jackass Hill is fairly honey- 
combed with prospect holes, shafts and 
tunnels. I was surprised to see that even 
now there is a certain amount of prospect 
work going forward, for I noticed several 
shafts with windlasses to which ropes were 
attached; and, in fact, was told that the 
old camp showed signs of a new lease of 
life. 

Musing on Tuttletown and its environ- 
ment later on got me into serious difficulty. 
Having crossed the Stanislaus Kiver and 
cleared the canon, I abandoned the main 
road for an alleged ^^ cut-off.'' This I was 
following with the utmost confidence, when, 
to my surprise, it came to an abrupt end 
at the foot of a steep hill. In the ravine 

20 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

below was a house, and there fortunately 
I found a man of whom I inquired if I 
was in ''Carson Flat.'' ''Carson Flat? 
Well, I should say not! You're 'way off!" 
"How much?" I asked feebly. "Oh, sev- 
eral miles." This in a tone that implied 
that though I was in a bad fix, it might 
possibly be worse. However, with the in- 
variable kindness of these people, he put 
me on a trail which, winding up to the sum- 
mit of a ridge, struck down into Carson 
Flat and joined the main road. And there 
I registered a vow: "The hard highway 
for me ! " As a consequence of this devia- 
tion, I materially lengthened the distance 
to Angel's. It is thirty miles from Tuol- 
umne by the road, to which, by taking the 
"cut-off," I probably added another three! 
It is surprising how these towns grow 
upon one. Already the Angel's Hotel 
seemed like home to me and after an ex- 
cellent dinner, I joined the loungers on the 
sidewalk and became one of a row, seated 
on chairs tilted at various angles against 
the wall of the hotel. And there I dozed, 
watching the passing show between 
dreams; for in the evening when the elec- 
tric lights are on, there is a sort of parade 
of the youth and beauty of the town, up 
and down the winding street. 

21 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

On account of the great heat that even 
the dry purity of the Sierra atmosphere 
could not altogether mitigate, I decided 
the next day to be content with reaching 
San Andreas, the county seat of Calaveras 
County, fifteen miles north of Angel's. 

Apart from its name, there is something 
about San Andreas that suggests Mexico, 
or one's idea of pastoral California in the 
early days of the American occupation. 
The streets are narrow and unpaved and 
during the midday heat are almost de- 
serted. Business of some sort there must 
be, for the little town, though somnolent, 
is evidently holding its own; but there 
seems to be infinite time in which to ac- 
complish whatever the necessities of life 
demand. And I may state here paren- 
thetically, that perhaps the most impres- 
sive feature of all the old California mining 
towns is their suggestion of calm repose. 
Each little community seems sufficient unto 
itself and entirely satisfied with things as 
they are. Not even in the Old World will 
you find places where the current of life 
more placidly flows. 

On the main street — and the principal 
street of all these towns is ''Main Street'' 
— I had the good fortune to be introduced 
to Judge Ira H. Eeed, who came to Cala- 

22 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

veras Comity in 1854, and has lived there 
ever since. He told me that Judge Gott- 
schalk, who died a few years ago at an ad- 
vanced age, was authority for the state- 
ment that Mark Twain got his ^'Jumping 
Frog^' story from the then proprietor of 
the Metropolitan Hotel, San Andreas, who 
asserted that the incident actually oc- 
curred in his bar-room. Twain, it is true, 
places the scene in a bar-room at AngePs, 
but that is doubtless the author's license. 
Bret Harte calls Tuttletown, ^ ^ Tuttleville, ' ' 
and there never was a ^^Wingdam*' stage. 
That evening as I lay awake in my bed- 
room at the Metropolitan Hotel, wonder- 
ing by what person of note it had been oc- 
cupied in the ''good old days," my atten- 
tion was attracted to the musical tinkle of 
a cow-bell. Looking out of the window, 
I beheld the strange spectacle of a cow 
walking sedately down the middle of the 
street. No one was driving her, no one 
paid her any attention beyond a casual 
glance, as she passed. The cow, in fact, had 
simply come home, after a day in the open 
country; and it became plain to me that 
this was a nightly occurrence and there- 
fore caused no comment. Unmolested, she 
passed the hotel and on down the street to 
the foot of the hill, where she evidently 

23 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

spent the night; for the tinkle of the bell 
became permanent and blended with and 
became a part of the subtle, mysterious 
sounds that constitute Nature's sleeping 
breath. 

This little incident in the county seat 
of Calaveras County impressed me as an 
epitome of the changes wrought by time, 
since the days when in song and story Bret 
Harte made the name ^ ' Calaveras ' ' a syno- 
nym for romance wherever the English lan- 
guage is spoken. 

From San Andreas my objective point 
was Placerville, distant about forty-five 
miles. The heat still being excessive, I 
made the town by easy stages, arriving at 
noon on the third day. Mokelumne Hill, 
ten miles beyond San Andreas, also lends 
its name to the little town which clusters 
around its apex and is at the head of Chili 
Gulch, a once famous bonanza for the 
placer miners. For miles the road winds 
up the gulch, which is almost devoid of 
timber, amid piled-up rocks and debris, 
bleached and blistered by the sun's fierce 
rays; the gulch itself being literally 
stripped to ^ ' bedrock. ' ' I had already wit- 
nessed many evidences of man's eager pur- 
suit of the precious metal, but nothing that 
so conveyed the idea of the feverish, per- 

24 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

sistent energy with which those adventur- 
ers in the new El Dorado had struggled 
day and night with Nature's obstacles, 
spurred on by the auri sacra fames. 

A little incident served to relieve the 
monotony of the climb up Chili Gulch. A 
miner, who might have sat for a study of 
** Tennessee's Partner,'' came down the 
hillside with a pan of *Mirt," which he 
carefully washed in a muddy pool in the 
bed of the gulch. He showed me the result, 
a few ^^ colors" and sulphurets. He said 
it would ' ^ go about five dollars to the ton, ' ' 
and seemed well satisfied with the result. 
I shall always hold him in grateful mem- 
ory, for he took me to an old tunnel, and 
disappearing for a few moments, returned 
with a large dipper of ice-cold water. Not 
the Children of Israel, when Aaron smote 
the rock in the desert and produced a liv- 
ing stream, could have lapped that water 
with keener enjoyment. 

The terrific heat in Chili Gulch made the 
shade from the trees which surround Mo- 
kelumne Hotel doubly grateful. Mokelumne 
Hill is, in fact, a mountain, and commands 
a view of rare beauty. At its base winds 
the wooded canon of the Mokelumne Eiver, 
on the farther side of which rises the Jack- 
son Butte, an isolated peak with an eleva- 

25 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

tion of over three thousand feet, while in 
the background loom the omnipresent peaks 
of the far Sierra. 

The Mokelumne Hotel is regarded as 
modern, dating back merely to 1868, at 
which time the original building was de- 
stroyed by fire. The present structure of 
solid blocks of stone, should resist the ele- 
ments for centuries to come. I was sur- 
prised at the excellent accommodations of 
this hotel. In what seemed such an out-of- 
the-way and inaccessible locality, I was 
served with one of the best meals on 
the whole journey, including claret with 
crushed ice in a champagne glass! What 
that meant to a tramp who had struggled 
for miles through quartz rock and impal- 
pable dust, up a heavy grade, without 
shade and the thermometer well past the 
hundred mark, only a tramp can appreci- 
ate. I fell in love with Mokelumne Hill 
and, after due consultation of my map, re- 
solved to pass the night in this pictur- 
esque and delightful spot. I was also 
influenced by its associations, as it figures 
prominently in Bret Harte^s stories. 

Of the four famous rivers — the Stanis- 
laus, Mokelumne, American and Cosumnes 
— which I crossed on this trip, the Mo- 
kelumne appealed to me the most. What- 

26 




o 



K^ ^ .% 



^- ^' :^ S" 



^Z.^ >B o ^ ^ ^' 



-'^ c 



S f-v :t nr <• 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

ever the meaning of the Indian name, one 
may rest assured it stands for some form 
of beauty. Jackson, the county seat of 
Amador County, is but six miles from Mo- 
kelumne Hill and a town of considerable 
importance, being the terminus of a branch 
line of the Southern Pacific Railway. It 
is situated in an open country where the 
hills are at some distance, and presents a 
certain up-to-date appearance. About a 
mile from Jackson the Kennedy mine, run- 
ning a hundred stamps, is one of the great- 
est gold producers in the State. 

Sutter Creek, erroneously supposed by 
many to be the spot where gold was first 
discovered in California, four miles north 
of Jackson, is picturesque and rendered at- 
tractive by reason of the vivid green of 
the lawns surrounding the little cottages on 
its outskirts. This town, too, has a flour- 
ishing look, accounted for by the operation 
of the South Eureka and Central Eureka 
mines. A gentleman whom I met on the 
street imparted this information, and 
asked me if I remembered Mark Twain's 
definition of a gold mine. I had to con- 
fess I did not. ^^Well,'' said he, ^'Mark 
Twain defined a gold mine as ^ a hole in the 
ground at one end, and a d — d fool at the 
other!' " The appreciative twinkle in his 

27 



A TEAMP THKOUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

eye suggested the possibility that this 
definition met with his approval. 

Amador, two miles beyond Sutter Creek, 
did not appeal to me. ' ^ Stagnation ' ' would 
probably come nearer than any other term 
to conveying to the mind of a person un- 
familiar with Amador its present condi- 
tion. One becomes acutely sensitive to the 
^'atmosphere'' of these places, after a few 
days upon the road, for each has a dis- 
tinctive individuality. In spite of the fact 
that it was mid-day in mi6?-summer, gloom 
seemed to pervade the streets and to be 
characteristic of its inhabitants. With the 
exception of an attempt to get into tele- 
phonic communication with a friend at 
Placerville, I lost not a moment in the 
town. 

On reaching Drytown, three miles north 
of Amador, I noted the thermometer stood 
at 110 degrees in the shade on the watered 
porch of the hotel, and deciding there was 
a certain risk attendant on walking in such 
heat, determined to make the best of what 
was anything but a pleasant situation, and 
go no farther. Drytown, in the modern ap- 
plication of the first syllable, is a misnomer, 
the ''town'' consisting chiefly of the hotel 
with accompanying bar, and a saloon across 
the way! 

28 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACEEVILLE 

Drytown was in existence as early as 
1849, and was visited in October of that 
year by Bayard Taylor. He says: **I 
found a population of from two to three 
hundred, established for the winter. The 
village was laid out with some regularity 
and had taverns, stores, butchers' shops 
and monte tables." One cannot but smile 
at the idea of ^' monte tables'' in connec- 
tion with the Drytown of to-day; pitiful 
as is the reflection that men had braved 
the hardships of the desert and toiled to 
the waist in water for gold, only to throw 
it recklessly in the laps of professional 
gamblers. 

The Exchange Hotel, a wooden build- 
ing dating back to 1858, stands on the site 
of the original hotel, built in 1851 and 
burned in 1857. Upon the front porch is 
a well furnishing cold, pure water. I found 
this to be the most acceptable feature of 
several of the old hostelries. The well and 
the swinging sign over the entrance sug- 
gested the wayside inn of rural England; 
more especially as the surrounding country 
carries out the idea, being gently undu- 
lating and well timbered. 

The following evening I put up at Nash- 
ville, on the North Fork of the Cosunmes 
River and well over the borders of El Do- 

29 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

rado county, passing Plymouth en route. 
Plymouth, on the map, appeared to be a 
place of some importance, but a closer in- 
spection proved that — in spite of its breezy 
name — it would take the spirits of a Mark 
Tapley to withstand its discouraging sur- 
roundings. Plymouth is ^ ^ living in hopes, ' ' 
an English syndicate having an option on 
certain mining properties in the vicinity; 
but Nashville is frankly ^^out of business.'^ 

At Nashville, in fact, I had some diffi- 
culty in securing ^' bed and lodging.'' There 
appeared to be only three families in this 
once flourishing camp. Strange as it may 
seem, money appears to be no object to 
people in these sequestered places. You 
have ^ ^ to make good, ' ' and in this instance 
it required not a little tact and diplomacy. 

I arrived at Placerville the following 
day. Due to taking a road not shown on 
my map, I went several miles astray and 
for some few hours was immersed in wild, 
chaparral-covered mountains, with evi- 
dences on all hands of deserted mines; 
finally crossing a divide at an elevation of 
two thousand feet and descending into the 
valley where slumbers the little town of 
El Dorado, formerly bearing the less at- 
tractive designation ^'Mud Springs.'' This 
title, though lacking in euphony, was more 

30 



TUOLUMNE TO PLACERVILLE 

in keeping with actual conditions, since the 
valley is noted for its springs, and Dia- 
mond Springs, a mile or two north, is quite 
a summer resort. Nor is there any indica- 
tion of the precious metal anjrwhere in the 
immediate vicinity. 

In Placerville — known as ^^Hangtown'' 
in the Bret Harte days — I registered at 
the Gary House, which once had the honor 
of entertaining no less a personage than 
Horace Greeley. It was here he termin- 
ated his celebrated stage ride with Hank 
Monk. I found that my friend Harold Ed- 
ward Smith had gone to Coloma, eight 
miles on the road to Auburn, and had left 
a note saying he would wait for me there 
the following morning. 



31 



CHAPTER IV 

J. H. BRADLEY AND THE GARY 

HOUSE. RUINS OF COLOMA. 

JAMES W. MARSHALL AND 

HIS PATHETIC END 

MOEE than any other town, 
Placerville gave a suggestion 
of the olden times. **John 
Oakhurst'^ and ''Jack Ham- 
lin'* would still be in their element, as 
witness the following scene: 

In the card room back of the bar, in a 
certain hotel, a ' ' little game ' ' was in prog- 
ress. A big, blond giant, with curly hair 
and clean-cut features — indeed he could 
have posed as a model for Praxiteles — 
arose nonchalantly from the table as I en- 
tered, and swept the stakes into a capacious 
pocket. An angry murmur of disapproval 
came from the sitters, and one man mut- 
tered something about "quitting the game 
a winner.'' With a hand on each hip, the 
giant swept the disgruntled upturned faces 
with a comprehensive glance, and drawled : 
''I'll admit there's something wrong in 
mine, gentlemen, or I wouldn't be here, 
see ? " He waited a moment and amid dead 

32 



J. H. BRADLEY AND THE GARY HOUSE 

silence passed slowly through the bar- 
room to the sidewalk, seated himself, 
stretched his long legs and placidly gazed 
across the street. 

In the morning I had a long talk with 
Mr. J. H. Bradley, perhaps the best known 
man in El Dorado County. Though in his 
eighty-fourth year, his keen brown eyes 
still retain the fire and light of youth. The 
vitality of these old pioneers is something 
marvelous. Mr. Bradley was born in Ken- 
tucky, but, as a boy, moved to Hannibal, 
Missouri, where he played marbles with 
Mark Twain, or Clemens, as he prefers to 
call him. In '49, he came across the plains 
to California. He was on the most friendly 
terms with Twain and said he assisted him 
to learn piloting on the Mississippi; and 
when Twain came to California, helped him 
to get a position as compositor with U. E. 
Hicks, who founded the Sacramento Union. 
He also knew Horace Greeley intimately, 
and has a portfolio that once was his prop- 
erty. Five years after Greeley's arrival 
in Placerville, which was in 1859, Mr. Brad- 
ley married Caroline Hicks, who with 
Phoebe and Eose Carey had acted as sec- 
retary to Mr. Greeley. Mr, Bradley takes 
no stock in the ^^keep your seat, Horace!'' 
story. He considers it a fabrication. In 

33 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

his opinion, the romancers — Bret Harte, 
Mark Twain, et al. — have done California 
more harm than good. He also has a thinly- 
disguised contempt for ^^ newspaper fel- 
lows and magazine writers.'' Nor does 
he believe in the ^'Mother Lode" — that is, 
in its continuity — in spite of the geologists. 
He prefers to speak of the ' ' mineral zone. ' ' 
In fine, Mr. Bradley is a man of definite 
and pronounced opinions on any subject 
you may broach. For that reason, his 
views, whether you agree with them or not, 
are always of interest. 

Hanging in the office of the Gary House 
is a clever cartoon, by William Cooper, of 
Portland, Oregon, entitled "A mining con- 
vention in Placerville ; ' ' in wliich Mr. Brad- 
ley is depicted in earnest conversation with 
a second Mr. Bradley, a third and evidently 
remonstrant Mr. Bradley intervening, 
while a fourth and fifth Mr. Bradley, de- 
cidedly bored, are hurriedly departing. 

Indeed, one glance at Mr. Bradley is 
enough to convince you that he is a man of 
unusual force of character. No one intro- 
duced me to him. I was merely informed at 
the Cary House that he was the person to 
whom I should apply for information con- 
cerning the old times. I accordingly 
started out to look for him and had not 

34 




^9 .^ 






J. H. BRADLEY AND THE GARY HOUSE 

proceeded fifty yards when a man, ap- 
proaching at a distance, arrested my atten- 
tion. As he drew nearer, I felt positive 
there could be only one such personage in 
Placerville, and when he was opposite me, 
I stopped and said, ^'How are you, Mr. 
Bradley?'' ^^ That's my name, sir; what 
do you want?" he replied. 

They take life easily in the old mining 
towns. No wonder the spectacle of a man 
with a pack on his back caused comment, 
in that heat, tramping two or three hundred 
miles for pleasure! Beyond the trivial 
necessities that bare existence makes im- 
perative, I was not conscious of seeing 
anyone do anything on the whole trip. 
Old miners not unnaturally took me for a 
prospector, and I think I never quite suc- 
ceeded in convincing them to the contrary. 

In Placerville as in Angel's Camp, the 
evening promenade seems the most im- 
portant event of the day. Young men and 
maidens pass and repass in an apparently 
endless chain. The same faces recur so 
frequently that one begins to take an in- 
terest in the little comedy and speculate 
on the rival attractions of blonde and 
brunette, and wonder which of the young 
bloods is the local Beau Brummel. The 
audience — so to speak — sit on chairs 

35 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

backed against the walls of the hotels and 
stores, while many prefer the street itself, 
and with feet on curb or other coign of 
vantage, tilt their chairs at most alarming 
angles. A sort of animated lovers' lane is 
thus formed, through which the prom- 
enaders have to run the gauntlet, and are 
subjected to a certain amount of criticism. 
Everyone knows everyone. Good natured 
badinage plays like wild-fire, up and down 
and across the street. Later on, the tinkle 
of mandolin and guitar is heard far into 
the night watches. 

Having determined to reach Auburn — 
thirty miles away — the next day, I made an 
early start. Coloma lies at the bottom of 
the great caiion of the South Fork of the 
American River. Hastening down the 
grade, in a bend of the road I almost ran 
into my friend. It seemed a strange meet- 
ing this, in the heart of the old mining 
country, and I think we both gave a per- 
ceptible start. 

It was at Coloma that gold was first dis- 
covered in California, by James W. Mar- 
shall, January 19, 1848. My companion 
had been so fortunate on the previous day 
as to meet Mr. W. H. Hooper, who arrived 
in Coloma August 8, 1850, and who has 
lived there practically ever since. Though 

36 



J. H. BKADLEY AND THE CAKY HOUSE 

eighty-three, he is still strong and vigor- 
ous. From him my friend elicited some 
very interesting information in regard to 
Marshall especially, the substance of which 
I append from his notes. Mr. Hooper had 
known Marshall for many years, and his 
reminiscences of the discoverer have a 
touch of pathos bordering on the tragic. 

Marshall, a trapper by trade and fron- 
tiersman by inclination, accompanied Gen- 
eral Sutter to California, assisted in the 
building of Sutter Fort and, on account 
of his mechanical ability, was sent to 
Coloma to superintend the erection of a 
sawmill. It was in the mill-race that he 
picked up the nugget which made the name 
** Calif ornia ' ' the magnet for the world's 
adventurers. Unaware of the nature of 
his **find,'* he took it to Sacramento, where 
it was declared to be gold. He was im- 
plored by General Sutter to keep the mill 
operatives in ignorance of his discovery, 
for fear they should desert their work. 
But how could such a secret be kept, 
especially by a man of generous and im- 
pulsive instincts? At any rate the news 
leaked out and the stampede followed. 

From Mr. Hooper's account, Marshall 
was a very human character. Late in life 
the state legislature granted him a pension 

37 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

of two hundred dollars per month. This 
sum being far in excess of his actual needs, 
it followed as a matter of course that his 
cronies assisted him in disposing of it. In 
fact, ^'Marshall's pension day'' became a 
local attraction, and the Coloma saloon — 
still in existence — the rendezvous. These 
reunions were varied by glorious excur- 
sions to Sacramento, his friends in the 
legislature imploring him to keep away. 
After two years the pension was cut down 
to one hundred dollars per month and 
finally was discontinued in toto — a shabby 
and most undignified procedure. Opposite 
the saloon, at some little distance, is a 
conical hill. For many years Marshall, 
seated on the steps of the porch, had gazed 
dreamily at its summit. Shortly before 
his death, addressing a remnant of the ' ' old 
guard, ' ' he exclaimed : * ' Boys, when I go, 
I want you to plant me on the top of that 
hill." And '' planted" he was, with a ten- 
thousand-dollar monument on top of Mm! 
The poor old fellow died in poverty at 
Kelsey, near Coloma, August 10, 1885, at 
the age of seventy-five. It is a sad reflec- 
tion that a tithe of the money spent on 
the monument would have comforted him 
in his latter days ; for the blow to his pride 
by the withdrawal of his pension, still more 

38 







^ - ^ 



5 ^ 



= S' td p D. ^^ r 
^|5 2 ^ S. ^ 



o < 



^ tl 



r^ < '-h 



5. S^ -s 



J. H. BRADLEY AND THE GARY HOUSE 

than the actual lack of funds, hastened 
the end. 

Mr. Hooper intimated that the popula- 
tion of Coloma diminished perceptibly 
after the termination of MarshalPs pen- 
sion. In common with the majority of the 
old miners, he saved nothing and never 
profited to any extent by the discovery that 
will keep his memory alive for centuries 
to come. 

Coloma in its palmy days had a popu- 
lation variously estimated at from five to 
ten thousand souls, with the usual accom- 
paniment of saloons, dance halls and faro 
banks. There was a vigorous expulsion 
of gamblers in the early fifties and an 
incident occurred which quite possibly sup- 
plied the inspiration for Bret Harte's 
^^ Outcasts of Poker Flat.'' A notorious 
gambler and desperado, and his accom- 
plice, demurred. Whereupon the irate 
miners placed them on a burro, and with 
vigorous threats punctuated by a salvo of 
revolver shots fired over their heads, drove 
them out of camp. They disappeared over 
the hill upon which the monument now 
stands, and were seen no more. 

Coloma suffered severely from fires. 
Little of the old town remains but ruins of 
stone walls, and here and there an isolated 

39 



A TKAMP THKOUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

wooden building. The ruins, however, are 
not only exceedingly picturesque, being half 
buried in foilage of beautiful trees, but 
hold the imagination with a grip that is 
indescribable. I could willingly have tar- 
ried here for days. 

But while old Coloma is dead, there is 
a new Coloma that furnishes an extra- 
ordinary contrast. It is a sweet and 
peaceful little hamlet, situated on the lower 
benches of the canon, well up out of the 
river bottom, and is entirely devoted to 
horticulture. One has read of birds build- 
ing their nests in the muzzles of old and 
disused cannon ; even that does not suggest 
a more anomalous association of ideas than 
the spectacle of a vine-clad cottage shaded 
by fig trees, basking peacefully in the sun, 
so close to what was at one time a veritable 
maelstrom of human passions. So far as 
the neiv Coloma is concerned, Marshall's 
discovery might never have been made. 
Nowhere else will you find a spot where 
gold and what it stands for would seem to 
mean so little. Coloma! It is passing 
strange that a name so sweet and restful 
should forever be linked with the wildest 
scramble for gold the world has ever seen ! 



40 



CHAPTER V 

AUBURN TO NEVADA CITY VIA 

COLFAX AND GRASS VALLEY. 

BEN TAYLOR AND HIS HOME 

Aftek surmounting the canon of the 
/^ South Fork of the American 
/ % Eiver, you gradually enter a 
.jL JIL more open country, the out- 
skirts of the great deciduous fruit belt in 
Placer County, which supplies New York 
and Chicago with choice plums, peaches 
and pears. About three miles from Au- 
burn, the road plunges into one of the 
deepest canons of the Sierras, at the bot- 
tom of which the Middle and North Forks 
of the American Eiver unite. Just below 
the junction, the river is spanned by a long 
suspension bridge. Auburn is remarkably 
situated in that one sees nothing of it until 
the rim of the canon is reached, at least 
a thousand feet above the river. Thus 
there are no outskirts and you plunge at 
once into the business streets, passing the 
station of the Central Pacific Railway, 
which line skirts the edge of the canon on 
a heavy grade. 

41 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

I had accomplished a good thirty miles, 
but that did not prevent me from accom- 
panying my friend on a long and protracted 
hunt for comfortable quarters in which to 
eat and spend the night. There was quite 
an attractive hotel near the railroad, but 
actuated by a desire to see something of 
the town, which we found to be more than 
usually drawn out, we passed it with linger- 
ing regret. Whether by chance or instinct, 
we drifted to the ruins of the old hotel, 
now in process of reconstruction, and were 
comfortably housed in a wooden annex. 

Auburn marks the western verge of the 
mineral zone, but in the fifties there were 
rich placer diggings in the immediate vi- 
cinity. There are some remarkably solid 
buildings of that period, in the old por- 
tion of the town, which, as customary, is 
situated in the bottom of the winding valley 
or ravine. Practically a new town, called 
^ ^ East Auburn, ' ' has been started on higher 
ground, and a fight is on to move the post 
office; but the people in the hollow having 
the voting strength, hang on to it like grim 
death. Along the edge of the American 
Eiver canon and commanding a magnifi- 
cent view, are the homes of the local 
aristocracy. In christening Auburn, it is 
scarcely credible that the pioneers had in 

42 



AUBUKN TO NEVADA CITY 

mind Goldsmith's ^ loveliest village of the 
plain;'' nor, keeping the old town in view, 
is the title remarkably applicable today. 

Our next objective point being Colfax, 
distant in a northeasterly direction only 
fifteen miles, we made a leisurely inspec- 
tion of the town and vicinity in the 
morning. The old town proved of absorb- 
ing interest to my friend, and we became 
separated while he was hunting up subjects 
for the camera. Having a free and easy 
working scheme in such matters, after a 
few minutes' search, I gave up the quest 
and started alone on the road to Colfax. 

A few miles out, I met a man with a 
rifle on his shoulder, leading a burro bear- 
ing a pack-saddle laden in the most scien- 
tific manner with probably all his worldly 
possessions, the pick and shovel plainly 
denoting a prospector. A water bucket 
on one side of the animal was so adjusted 
that the bottom was uppermost ; on the top 
of the bucket sat a little fox-terrier, his 
eyes fixed steadfastly on his master. I 
paused a moment, possessed with a strong 
desire to take a snap shot of this remark- 
able equipment, but the man with the gun 
gave me a glance that settled the matter. 
His was not a bad face — far from it — but 
the features were stern and set, the cheeks 

43 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HAETB COUNTRY 

furrowed with deep lines that bespoke 
hardship and fatigue in the struggle with 
Nature and the elements. That glance out 
of the tail of his eye meant : ' ' Let me alone 
and I will let you alone, but let me alone !^' 

Taciturnity becomes habitual to men ac- 
customed to vast solitudes. Even on such 
a tramp as I had undertaken, in which I 
frequently walked for miles without sight 
or sound of a human being, I began to 
realize how banal and aimless is con- 
ventional conversation. Under such con- 
ditions you feel yourself in sympathy 
with the man who says nothing unless he 
has something to say, and who, in turn, 
expects the same restriction of speech 
from you. 

I was seated on the porch of the store 
at Applegate, disposing of a frugal lunch 
consisting of raisins and crackers, when 
my friend hove in sight. After a private 
inspection of the store's possibilities, with 
a little smile, the meaning of which I well 
understood from many similar experiences, 
he sat down beside me and without a word 
tackled the somewhat uninviting repast, to 
which with a wave of the hand I invited 
him. I may say here that Mr. Smith is a 
veteran and inveterate *^ hiker.'* I doubt 
very much whether any man in California 

44 



AUBUBN TO NEVADA CITY 

has seen as much of this magnificent State 
as he, certainly not on foot; as a conse- 
quence he is accustomed to a ready accept- 
ance of things as they are. Applegate, 
about midway between Auburn and Colfax, 
is an alleged ^^ summer resort.^' It did not 
appeal to us as especially attractive, the 
view, at any rate from the road, being 
extremely limited and lacking any dis- 
tinctive features. Without unnecessary 
delay, therefore, we resumed the march. 

It is practically up-hill — ^^on the collar'* 
— all the way to Colfax, as is plainly evi- 
denced by the heavy railroad grade. About 
a mile short of the town, we made a di- 
gression to an Italian vineyard of note. 
There, at a long table under a vine-covered 
trellis that connected the stone cellar with 
the dwelling-house, we were served with 
wine by a young woman having the true 
Madonna features of Sunny Italy, her 
mother, a comely matron, in the meantime 
preparing the evening meal, while on the 
hard ground, encumbered with no super- 
fluous clothing, disported the younger 
members of the family. And as I sat and 
smoked the pipe of peace, I reflected upon 
how much better they do these things in 
Italy — for to all intents and purposes, I 
was in Italy. 

45 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

Colfax — before the advent of the C. P. 
E. R. called ''Illinois Town'' — is an odd 
blending of past and present; the solid 
structures of the mining days contrasting 
strangely with the flimsy wooden buildings 
that seem to mark a railroad town. We 
were amazed at the amount of traffic that 
occurs in the night. Three big overland 
trains passed through in either direction, 
the interim being tilled in with the switch- 
ing of cars, accompanied apparently with 
a most unnecessary ringing of bells and 
piercing shrieks from whistles. Since our 
hotel was not more than a hundred and 
fifty feet from the main line, with no in- 
tervening buildings to temper the noises, 
sleep of any consequence was an utter im- 
possibility. 

Few Californians are aware, probably, 
that a considerable amount of tobacco is 
raised in the foot-hills of the Sierras. At 
Colfax, I smoked a very fair cigar made 
from tobacco grown in the vicinity, and 
manufactured in the town. 

I think we were both glad to leave Col- 
fax. Apart from a nerve-racking night, 
the mere proximity of the railroad with 
its accompanying associations served con- 
stantly to bring to mind all that I had fled 
to the mountains to escape. Yet I cannot 

46 



AUBUKN TO NEVADA CITY 

bring myself to agree with those who pro- 
fess to brand a railroad '^a blot on the 
landscape/' The enormous engines which 
pull the overland trains up the heavy 
grades of the Sierra Nevada impress one 
by their size, strength and suggestion of 
reserve power, as not being out of harmony 
with the forces of Nature they are con- 
structed to contend with and overcome. 

This thought occurred to us as we 
watched a passenger train slowly winding 
its way around the famous Cape Horn, 
some four miles from Colfax. Although 
several miles in an air line intervened, one 
seemed to feel the vibrations in the air 
caused by the panting monster, while great 
jets of steam shot up above the pine trees. 
I confess to a sense of elation at the spec- 
tacle. Nature in some of her moods seems 
so malignant, that I felt proud of this mag- 
nificent exhibition of man's victory over 
the obstacles she so well knows how to 
interpose. 

The road between Colfax and Grass 
Valley — the next stopping place on our 
itinerary — lay through so lovely a country 
that we passed through it as in a dream. 
Descending into the valley we were joined 
by several small boys, attracted, I suppose, 
by our — to them — unusual costume and 

47 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

equipment, who plied us with questions. 
They asked if ^^we carried a message for 
the mayor, '^ and were visibly disappointed 
when we regretted we had overlooked that 
formality. For several minutes they kept 
us busy trying to give truthful answers to 
most unexpected questions. They had 
never heard of Tuolumne and wanted to 
know if it was in California. Their world, 
in fact, was bounded by Colfax on the south 
and Nevada City on the north. 

Grass Valley received its name from the 
meadow in which the town, for the most 
part, is situated. The ground is so moist 
that, notwithstanding the heat, the grass 
was a vivid green. Apple trees growing 
in the grass, as in the orchards of England 
and in the Atlantic States, and perfectly 
healthy, conveyed that suggestion of the 
Old World which lends a peculiar charm to 
these towns. And Grass Valley really is 
a town, having seven thousand inhabitants ; 
and is, withal, clean, picturesque and alto- 
gether delightful. One understood why 
*^ Tuolumne'^ sounded meaningless to those 
small boys. Thus early in life they were 
under influences which will probably keep 
them in after years — as they kept their 
fathers — permanent citizens of the town 
of Grass Valley. 

48 



AUBUKN TO NEVADA CITY 

Grass Valley was one of the richest of 
the old mining camps. There was literally 
gold everywhere, even in the very roots 
of the grass. The mining is now all under- 
ground and drifts from the North Star and 
Ophir mines underlie a part of the town. 

After a methodical search, we discovered 
an excellent restaurant and made a note 
of it as a recurrent possibility. A judicious 
choice of a suitable place in which to eat 
and eke, to pass the night, is to the tramp 
a matter of vital interest. Eobert Louis 
Stevenson, in those entertaining narratives 
*^An Inland Voyage '^ and '^Travels with 
a Donkey, '^ lays heartfelt stress on these 
particulars; when things were not to his 
liking, roundly denouncing them, but if 
agreeably surprised, lifting up his voice 
in song and praise. 

Though tempted to pass the night in 
Grass Valley, impelled by curiosity, we 
pushed on four miles farther, to Nevada 
City. It is useless to attempt to convey 
in words the fascination of Nevada City. 
My friend, who is familiar with the country, 
said it reminded him of Italy. Houses rise 
one above the other on the hillside; while 
down below, the winding streets with their 
quaint old-time stores and balconied win- 
dows, are equally attractive. The horrors 

49 



A TBAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

of the previous night at Colfax made the 
quiet peacefulness of Nevada City the more 
refreshing. At the National Hotel I en- 
joyed the soundest sleep since leaving 
home. 

In the morning there was a delicious 
breeze from the mountains, which rendered 
strolling about the town a pleasure. Ac- 
cording to custom, we went our several 
ways, each drawn by what appealed to him 
the most at the moment. When ready to 
depart, finding no trace of my companion 
at the hotel, I left word that I had returned 
to Grass Valley; where an hour or two 
later, he rejoined me. 

More fortunate than I, my friend by 
chance encountered Mr. Morrison M. 
Green, on the street in front of his home 
upon the hill which looks down upon the 
town. This gentleman, who is in his eighty- 
third year, related an almost incredible 
incident in connection with the fire in 1857, 
which wiped out the town, with the excep- 
tion of one house. Three prominent citi- 
zens who chanced to have met in a saloon 
when the fire broke out, having the utmost 
confidence in the safety of a certain build- 
ing, on account of its massive walls and 
iron door, made a vow to lock themselves 
in it, and actually did so. They might 

50 



■^»w».iP*t1«1!«^i*!S<i.-«t.».' 




PLATE VI 

Ben Taylor and His Home, Grass 

Valley, Showing the Spruce He Planted 

Nearly Half a Century Ago 



AUBURN TO NEVADA CITY 

perhaps have withstood the ordeal, had not 
the roof been broken in by the fall of the 
walls of the adjoining building. The iron 
door having been warped with the heat, 
it was impossible to open it ; when last seen, 
they were standing with their arms around 
one another in the center of the store. 

At Grass Valley, my friend — greatly to 
my regret and I think also to his own — 
received word which rendered his return 
to San Francisco imperative. After a fare- 
well dinner at the restaurant before men- 
tioned, I accompanied him to the railway 
station, and in the words of Christian in 
'^The Pilgrim's Progress," '^I saw him no 
more in my dream. ' ' I confess to a feeling 
of depression after his departure, for how- 
ever enjoyable the experiences of the road, 
they are rendered doubly so by the sympa- 
thetic companionship of a man endowed 
not only with a keen sense of humor but 
also with an unusual perception of human 
nature. 

After registering at the Holbrooke — a 
substantial survival of the old times — I 
called by appointment on Mr. Ben Taylor, 
a much respected citizen of Grass Valley 
and probably the oldest inhabitant of 
Nevada County, having reached the patri- 
archal age of eighty- six. 

51 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

Mr. Taylor has a charming home with 
extensive grounds overlooking the town 
and surrounding country. In his garden is 
a spruce he planted himself forty-five years 
ago, and apple trees of the same age. The 
spruce now has the appearance of a forest 
tree and shades the whole front of the 
house. His present home was built in 1864 
and from all appearances should last the 
century out. He said the lumber was care- 
fully selected, the boards being heavier 
than usual, and all the important timbers, 
instead of being nailed, were morticed and 
dove-tailed. This thoroughness of work- 
manship accounts for the excellent condi- 
tion of the wooden buildings in these towns, 
many of which were constructed over fifty 
years ago. 

Mr. Taylor came to Grass Valley Sep- 
tember 22, 1849, and has lived there almost 
continuously ever since. He crossed the 
plains one of twenty-five men, the last of 
his companions dying in 1905. The little 
band suffered many hardships, having to 
be constantly on watch for Indians, though 
he said they were more fearful of the Mor- 
mons. They came over the old emigrant 
trail across the Sierra Nevada. When they 
reached Grass Valley, their Captain, a man 
named Broughton, exclaimed: ^*Boys! 

52 



AUBURN TO NEVADA CITY 

here's the gold; this is good enough for 
us I*' And there they stayed, the twenty- 
five of them! 

Mr. Taylor had frequently met Mark 
Twain, but never to his knowledge, Bret 
Harte. In common with other men who 
had known the Great American Humorist, 
Mr. Taylor smiled at the bare mention of 
his name. Twain's breezy, hail-fellow-well- 
met manner, combined with his dry humor, 
insured him a welcome at all the camps; 
he was a man who would '^pass the time 
of day'' and take a friendly drink with any 
man upon the road. Twain, he told me, 
and a man with whom he was traveling 
on one occasion, lost their mules. They 
tracked them to a creek and concluding 
the mules had crossed it. Twain said to 
his companion: ^* What's the use of both 
of us getting wet? I'll carry you!'' The 
other complying. Twain reached in safety 
the deepest part of the creek and, pur- 
posely or not, dropped him. A man, to 
play such pranks as this, must be sure of 
his standing in a primitive community. 

Mr. Taylor is known to everyone in 
Nevada County as ^^Ben." His genial 
manner and kindly nature are apparent at 
a glance. But while Ben Taylor was on 
friendly terms with Mark Twain, he was 

53 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

never so intimate with him as with Bayard 
Taylor, whom, it seems, he much resembled. 
This accidental likeness, combined with the 
similarity of names, caused many more or 
less amusing but embarrassing complica- 
tions, since they were frequently taken for 
each other and received each other's cor- 
respondence. 

I asked Ben Taylor — he rightly dislikes 
^' Mister, '* perhaps the ugliest and most 
inappropriate word in the English lan- 
guage — if the shootings and hangings 
which fig-ure so prominently in the stories 
of the romancers were not exaggerations. 
He said he certainly was of that opinion. 
I said: **As a matter of fact, did you 
ever see a man either shot or hung for a 
crime r' **I never did,'' he replied with 
emphasis. ^'But I once came across the 
bodies of several men who had been strung 
up for horse-stealing; that, however, was 
not in Grass Valley." 

Ben Taylor was present when Lola 
Montez horsewhipped Henry Shibley, edi- 
tor of the Grass Valley National, for what 
she considered derogatory reflections on 
herself, published in his paper. It can 
readily be understood that Grass Valley 
was at that time a place of importance, 
when Lola Montez considered it worth 

54 



AUBUKN TO NEVADA CITY 

while to stay there several years and sing 
and dance for the miners. 

In parting, Ben Taylor told me pa- 
thetically that his wife had died a few 
years before and he had never recovered 
from the blow; ^'I am merely marking 
time nntil the end comes, ' ' he added. Since 
his married daughter and family live with 
him, he is assured in his latter days of 
loving care and attention. 



55 



CHAPTER VI 

E. W. M ASLIN AND HIS RECOLLEC- 
TIONS OF PIONEER DAYS IN 
GRASS VALLEY. ORIGIN OF 
OUR MINING LAWS 

To Mr. E. W. Maslin, of Alameda, 
of whom Ben Taylor said: ''He 
is like a brother to me,'' I am 
indebted for information of much 
interest, bearing on the olden days and 
Grass Valley in particular. Mr. Maslin 
came around the ''Horn" to California, in 
the ship Herman, on May 7, 1853. He ar- 
rived in Grass Valley and went to work as 
a miner the following morning. He now 
holds, and has for years, the responsible 
position in the United States Custom 
House, San Francisco, of Deputy Naval 
Officer of the Port. The clearing papers 
of every vessel that leaves San Francisco 
bear his signature. Although in his eight- 
ieth year, his memory is as clear and his 
sense of humor as vivid as when, a youth 
of nineteen, he left for good, Maryland, 
his native state. Few men in the San Fran- 
cisco bay region are more widely known 
than he. His ready wit, cheery laugh and 

56 



EECOLLECTIONS OF PIONEEK DAYS 

fund of information — for he is extremely 
well-read — always insure for him an atten- 
tive and appreciative audience. 

Speaking of Ben Taylor, he told me a 
characteristic incident, which being also 
typical of the men of '49, I give, with his 
consent, as related. When the White Pine 
excitement in 1869 started a rush of pros- 
pectors to Nevada, Mr. Maslin caught the 
fever with the rest. In common with all 
who dug for gold, he had his ups and downs, 
the fat years and the lean ones ; at the time, 
his fortunes being at a lew ebb, he joined 
the stampede. Several years previous to 
his departure, without informing his wife, 
he had borrowed of Ben Taylor, three hun- 
dred dollars, secured by mortgage on his 
house in Grass Valley. At White Pine 
he met with considerable success, and in 
a short time sent his wife five hundred dol- 
lars, telling her for the first time of the 
mortgage on their home and requesting her 
to go to Ben Taylor at once and pay him 
in full. It so happened that Taylor had 
called on Mrs. Maslin for news of her hus- 
band, as she was reading this letter. She 
immediately tendered him the check with 
the request that he would inform her to 
what the interest amounted. ^*Why, 
Molly,'' said Ben Taylor, ^^you surely 

57 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

ought to know me well enough to know 
I would never take any interest on that 
monej^ ! ' ' When it is remembered that the 
legal rate of interest at that time was ten 
per cent, and that double that amount was 
not infrequently paid — Mr. Maslin, in fact, 
expecting to pay Taylor something like five 
hundred dollars — the attitude of the latter 
will be the better appreciated. 

This seems a fitting place to pay a hum- 
ble personal tribute of respect to the 
memory of the men of ^Hhe fall of '49 and 
the spring of '50. '' Not since the Crusades, 
when the best blood of Europe was spilt 
in defense of the Holy Sepulchre, has the 
world seen a finer body of men than the 
Argonauts of California. True, the quest 
of the ^^ Golden Fleece" was the prime 
motive, but sheer love of adventure for 
adventure's sake played a most important 
part. Later on, the turbulent element ar- 
rived. It was due to the rectitude, inherent 
sense of justice and courage of the pio- 
neers that they were held in check and, 
by force of arms when necessary, made to 
understand the white man's code of honor. 

So much in song and story has been said 
of the scramble for gold in the early days 
after the discovery, and so little attention 
given to the artistic and aesthetic sense of 

58 



RECOLLECTIONS OP PIONEER DAYS 

the pioneers, that the general impression 
made by the famous old mining towns of 
California, when seen for the first time, 
may be worth recording. In the massive 
stone hotels and stores of that period, as 
well as in the careful construction of dwell- 
ing houses, they exhibited a true perception 
of ^'the eternal fitness of things.'' The 
buildings of the fifties, in their extreme 
simplicity, are far more imposing than the 
nondescript, pretentious structures of to- 
day, and will, beyond doubt, in usefulness 
outlast them. 

As a result of ignoring the checker-board 
plan, and permitting the streets to follow 
the natural contour of the hills and ravines, 
these mountain towns seem to have be- 
come blended and to be in harmony with 
the wonderful setting Nature has provided. 
All buildings, residential or otherwise, are 
protected from the summer heat by um- 
brageous trees. Lawns of richest green 
delight the eye, and vines and flowers sur- 
round cottages perched on steep hillsides, 
or half-hidden in deep ravines. The first 
glimpse from a distant eminence of any of 
the old mining towns conveys the sug- 
gestion of peaceful homes buried in green- 
ery, basking contentedly in the brilliant 
sunshine, surrounded by the whispering 

59 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

pines, with the snow-clad peaks of the 
Sierra Nevada for a background. 

You also receive the impression of clean- 
liness. If there were any old cans, scraps 
of paper and miscellaneous rubbish lying 
about in any town through which I passed, 
I did not notice them. One is struck, too, 
by the absence of the '' vacant lof — that 
unsightly blot of such frequent occurrence 
in all towns in the process of building, es- 
pecially when forced by *' booms*' beyond 
their normal growth. Fortunately the very 
word ^'boom,'' in its significance as applied 
to inflated real estate values, has no mean- 
ing in these towns, with the result that 
they are compact. One may search in vain 
for the ^^ house to lef sign. When no 
more houses were needed, no more houses 
were built. This compactness of form, 
cleanliness, and the elimination to a great 
extent of the rectangular block, contribute 
in no small measure to that indefinable 
suggestion of the Old World — a charm that 
haunts the memory and finally becomes a 
permanent acquisition. 

However clever the stories of the 
romancers — of whom Bret Harte pre- 
eminently stands first — after all, their 
characters were intrinsically but creatures 
of the imagination; the pioneers were the 

60 



KECOLLECTIONS OF PIONEER DAYS 

real thing! Yet such is the nature of this 
topsy-turvy world, the copies will remain, 
whilst the originals will fade away and 
be forgotten ! The writer will always hold 
it a privilege that he had the pleasure of 
meeting in the flesh a remnant of the men 
who laid the foundation of the institutions 
by means of which this great Common- 
wealth has grown and prospered; big, 
broad-minded, strong men who, whatever 
their failings — for they were very human 
— were generous to a fault, ever ready to 
listen to the cry of distress or help a fallen 
brother to his feet, scornful of pettiness, 
ignorant of snobbery, fair and square in 
their dealings with their fellows. Alas, 
that it should have come to ^^Hail and 
FarewelP* to such a type of manhood! 

At my request, Mr. Maslin, at one time 
a practicing attorney, dictated the follow- 
ing succinct account of the origin of the 
mining laws of California. The discovery 
at Gold Hill, now within the corporate 
limits of Grass Valley, of a gold-bearing 
quartz ledge, subsequently the property of 
Englishmen who formed an organization 
known as '^The Gold Hill Quartz Mining 
Company,*' led to the founding of the min- 
ing laws of California. On December 30, 
1850, the miners passed regulations which 

61 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

had with them the force of laws, defining 
the location and ownership of mines. It 
was provided that claims should be forty 
feet by thirty feet; a recorder was to be 
elected by the miners and all difficulties 
arising out of trespass on claims were to 
be tried before the recorder and two 
miners, an appeal to be taken to the justice 
of the peace. 

When quartz lodes began to be dis- 
covered and worked, it was found that the 
location of claims by square feet did not 
protect the miner or afford sufficient terri- 
tory upon which to expend his labor. 
Accordingly a miners^ meeting was held 
in Nevada City on December 20, 1852, and 
a body of laws prescribed, governing all 
quartz mines within the county of Nevada. 
The following were the salient features: 
*^Each proprietor of a quartz claim shall 
be entitled to one hundred feet on a quartz 
ledge or vein; the discoverer shall be al- 
lowed one hundred feet additional. Each 
claim shall include all the dips, angles, and 
variations of the same.'' The remaining 
articles related to the working, holding and 
recording of claims. This law was incor- 
porated in the mining legislation of the 
State of Nevada and has formed the basis 
of the mining laws of each territory of the 

62 



EECOLLECTIONS OF PIONEEE DAYS 

United States. Thus we have a proof not 
only of the intelligence of the early miner, 
but also of his capacity for self-govern- 
ment. It must be remembered that the 
miners came from all over the United 
States, but principally from the West and 
the South. Probably none had seen a 
quartz ledge before coming to California, 
yet the necessity for extending a claim as 
far as the ledge dipped was soon perceived, 
as also the taking into consideration a 
change in the direction or course of the 
lode. Commenting on these laws and the 
causes leading to their adoption, Mr. 
Maslin became emphatic. He said : 

^^No body of rough, uncouth, pistolled 
ruffians, such as Bret Harte depicts the 
miners, would have formed such a group 
of benevolent, far-reaching and compre- 
hensive laws. The early miner represented 
the best type of American character. He 
was brave, undeterred by obstacles, endur- 
ing with patient fortitude the perils and 
privations of the long journey of half a 
year by land, or a tempestuous voyage by 
sea ; undaunted alike by the terrors of Cape 
Horn or the insidious diseases of the Isth- 
mus of Panama. He met the, to him, 
hitherto unknown problem of the extrac- 
tion of gold and solved it with the wisdom 

63 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

and vigor which distinguish the American. 
Observe that the provision against throw- 
ing dirt on another man^s claim anticipated 
by many years the famous hydraulic de- 
cision of Judge Sawyer. It is another way 
of stating the maxim of law and equity: 
^so use 3^our own property, as not to in- 
jure that of another.' '^ 

Mr. Maslin agrees with Ben Taylor that 
the hangings and shootings of the period 
following the discovery of gold have been 
grossly exaggerated. On this point he 
said: ^'I will venture to assert that in 
certain of the Mississippi Valley States, 
in their early settlement, more men were 
killed in one year than in ten of the early 
mining years in California. ' ' Of lynching, 
he said: *^ There were few lynchings in 
California, and those mostly in the south- 
ern tier of counties, of persons convicted 
of cattle-stealing.'* In connection with 
lynching he related a serio-comic incident 
that occurred in Grass Valley in the early 
days. 

Several fires had taken place in the town 
and the inhabitants were in consequence 
much excited. A watchman on his rounds 
espied a light in a vacant log cabin, and 
entering, caught a man in the act of strik- 
ing a match. He arrested him and the 

64 












PLATE VII 

E. W. Maslin in the 

Garden of His Alameda Home 



RECOLLECTIONS OF PIONEER DAYS 

populace were for taking summary venge- 
ance. A man known as *'Blue Coat 
Osborne'* cried out, ''Let's hang him! 
Nevada City once hanged a man and Grass 
Valley never did!'' This was an effective 
appeal, for the rivalry that has lasted ever 
since already existed. Fortunately, wiser 
counsels prevailed; the man was subse- 
quently tried and acquitted, it appearing 
that he was a traveling prospector who had 
merely entered the cabin in order to light 
his pipe! In this connection, I may state 
that Mr. Maslin confirmed the story of the 
three friends in Nevada City, who at- 
tempted to withstand ''the ordeal by fire.'* 
Mr. Maslin is justly jealous for the repu- 
tation of the Argonauts. Perhaps Bret 
Harte's miner, with his ready pistol, was 
as far from the mark as Eudyard Kipling's 
picture of Tommy Atkins as "an absent- 
minded beggar" — an imputation the real 
"Tommy" hotly resented. At the same 
time, such stories as "The Luck of Roar- 
ing Camp" and "Tennessee's Partner," 
not to quote others, prove Bret Harte con- 
ceded to the miner, courage, patience, 
gentleness, generosity and steadfastness in 
friendship. If Bret Harte really "hurt" 
California, it was because, leaving the 
State for good in February, 1871, he car- 

65 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

ried with him the atmosphere of the early 
mining days and never got out of it. He 
never realized the transition from mining 
to agriculture and horticulture, as the lead- 
ing industries of the State. Thus his later 
stories which dealt with California, written 
long after the subsidence of the mining ex- 
citement, continued to convey to the East- 
ern or English reader an impression of 
the Californian as a bearded individual, his 
trousers tucked into long boots and the 
same old ^'red shirf with the sleeves 
rolled back to the shoulders! As lately — 
comparatively speaking — as the Chicago 
Columbian Exposition, a lady told me she 
met at the Fair a woman who said she 
wanted to visit California, and asked if it 
would be safe to do so ''on account of the 
Indians!'' While Indians do not appear 
in Bret Harte's pages, it is a safe con- 
jecture that, through association of ideas, 
this lady conjured up a vague vision of a 
*^ prairie schooner'' crossing the plains, 
harassed by the Indian of the colored 
prints ! 

The following picture of the trying of a 
civil suit under difficulties, though in all 
probability causing little comment at the 
time, would undoubtedly do so at the pres- 
ent day, were the conditions possible. In 

66 



RECOLLECTIONS OF PIONEER DAYS 

1853 Mr. Maslin owned, with his brother, 
a one-fifth interest in ten gravel claims at 
Pike Flat near Grass Valley. On the 
ground of alleged imperfection of location 
of a portion of these claims, they were 
** jumped,'^ and litigation followed. 

The case was called before ^*Si^' Brown, 
a justice of the peace, at Rough and Ready, 
in a building (of which I obtained a photo- 
graph) used as a hotel and for other pur- 
poses. In the long room, now occupied 
as a store. Judge Brown held his court. 
On the right was a door leading to the bar. 
Extending the whole length of the room 
were four faro tables. At the rear the 
judge, jury, attorneys and the principals 
in the lawsuit made the best of the accom- 
modations. 

After stating the case. Judge Brown thus 
addressed the gamblers at the faro tables : 
*^Boys, the court is now opened, call your 
games low!*^ In accordance with this re- 
quest, though still audible, came in a 
monotonous undertone, the faro dealers' 
oft-repeated call: ^^ Gents, make your 
game — make your game ! ' ' The bets were 
put down and the cards called, in the same 
subdued voice. At intervals, an attorney 
on one side or the other would arise and 
Jay: ^*I move you, your Honor, that the 

67 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTB COUNTRY 

court do now take a recess of ten minutes.'' 
The court : ' * The motion is sustained ; but 
go softly, gentlemen, go softly!'' It is 
probably needless to add that judge, jury, 
principals, attorneys and witnesses filed 
out of the door leading to the right; re- 
turning in ten minutes to resume the trial 
to the not altogether inappropriate accom- 
paniment from the faro dealers, ^^Make 
your game, gents, make your game!" 

The spirit of rivalry between Grass Val- 
ley and Nevada City has been accentuated, 
of late, by the efforts of the former town 
to secure the honor of being the county 
seat, on the claim that it possesses nearly 
double the population of Nevada Cit}^ 
Politics serve to intensify the feeling; 
Grass Valley, which contains many people 
of Southern birth, being largely Demo- 
cratic in its affiliations, whilst Nevada City 
is as strongly, and, one may add, as con- 
servatively. Republican. 

Possibly the oldest building in Grass 
Valley is the Western Hotel. It is so 
hidden in the surrounding trees that it 
was with difficulty I took a photograph in 
which any portion of the hotel itself ap- 
peared. In the garden stands a splendid 
English walnut over forty years old; and 
on the porch, the well and pump to which 

68 



RECOLLECTIONS OF PIONEER DAYS 

I have before alluded as a distinguishing 
feature of the old-time hostelry, add a 
quaint and characteristic touch. 

Grass Valley and Nevada City are nearly 
three thousand feet above sea level. The 
air, in consequence, is light and pure and 
the heat seldom excessive. It would be 
difficult, the world over, to find a more 
agreeable or salubrious climate. 

It was with genuine regret that I left 
Grass Valley the following morning; not 
even Sonora possessed for me a stronger 
attraction. As I paused on the summit of 
the hill, for a farewell view of the town, 
I mentally resolved — the Fates permitting 
— I would pay another and more protracted 
visit to this land of enchantment. 



69 



CHAPTER VII 

GRASS VALLEY TO SM ARTSVILLE. 

SUCKER FLAT AND ITS 

PERSONAL APPEAL 

I WAS heading due west for Smarts- 
ville, just across the line in Yuba 
County. In four miles, I came to 
Rough and Ready, once a famous 
camp. Save for the inevitable hotel, now 
used in part as a store, there was nothing 
to suggest the cause of its pristine glory 
or the origin of its emphatic designation; 
today it is simply a picturesque, rural 
hamlet. In Penn Valley, a mile or two 
farther on, I passed a smashed and aban- 
doned automobile, the second wreck I had 
encountered. I thanked my star I traveled 
afoot; heavy going, it is true, in places, 
but safe and sure. 

Notwithstanding the ubiquity of the auto- 
car, it is still a fact that between the man 
in the car and the man on foot is set an 
impassable gulf. You are walking through 
a mountainous country, where every bend 
of the road reveals some new charm; ab- 
sorbed in silent enjoyment of the scene, 
you have forgotten the very existence of 

70 



GRASS VALLEY TO SMARTSVILLE 

the machine, when a raucous ^^honk*' jolts 
you out of your daydream and causes you 
to jump for your life. In a swirl of dust 
the monster engulfs you, leaving you the 
dust and the stench of gasoline as souve- 
nirs, but followed by your anathemas! 
This doubtless is where the man in the car 
thinks he has scored. Perhaps he has. 
When the dust on the road has settled and 
you have rubbed it out of your eyes, once 
more you forget his existence. 

But the very speed with which he travels 
is the reason why the man in the car misses 
nearly all the charm of the country through 
which he is passing. On this tramp I took 
forty-odd photographs, all more or less 
of historical interest. Biding in an auto- 
mobile, many of the subjects I would 
not have noticed or, if I had, I would not 
have been able to bring my camera into 
play. On several occasions I retraced my 
steps a good quarter of a mile, feeling I 
had lost a landscape or street scene I might 
never again have the opportunity to be- 
hold. 

What is of far greater consequence, the 
man on the road comes into touch not only 
with Nature, but the Children of Nature! 
In these days, automobiles are as thick as 
summer flies ; you cannot escape them even 

71 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

in the Sierra foot-hills. No attention is 
paid them by the country people, unless 
they are in trouble or have caused trouble, 
which is mostly the case. But the man 
who ''hikes'^ for pleasure is a source of 
perennial interest not unmixed with ad- 
miration, especially when walking with the 
thermometer indicating three figures in the 
shade. To him the small boy opens his 
heart; the ^'hobo'' passes the time of day 
with a merry jest thrown in; the good 
housewife brings a glass of cold water or 
milk, adding womanlike, a little motherly 
advice; the passing teamster, or even stage- 
driver — that autocrat of the ^^ ribbons" — 
shouts a cheery ^^How many miles today. 
Captain r* or, ^^ Where did you start from 
this morning. Colonel?" — these titles per- 
haps due to the battered old coat of khaki. 
All the humors of the road are yours. 
In fact, you yourself contribute to them, by 
your unexpected appearance on the scene 
and the novelty of your '^make-up," if I 
may be pardoned the expression. At the 
hotel bar, you drink a glass of beer with 
the local celebrity and thus come into im- 
mediate touch with ''the oldest inhabi- 
tant." After dinner, seated on a bench 
on the sidewalk, you smoke a pipe and dis- 
cuss the affairs of the nation or of the 

72 



GRASS VALLEY TO SMARTSVILLE 

town — usually the latter — with the man 
who in the morning offered to give you a 
lift and never will understand why you 
declined. Invariably you receive courteous 
replies and in kindly interest are met more 
than half way. 

The early romances, the prototypes of 
the modern novel, from ^'Don Quixote'^ to 
*'Tom Jones'' and ''Joseph Andrews,'' 
were little more than narratives of adven- 
tures on the road. "Joseph Andrews" 
in particular — perhaps Fielding's master- 
piece — is simply the story of a journey 
from London to a place in the country some 
hundred and fifty miles distant. In these 
books all the adventures are associated 
with inns and the various characters, 
thrown together by chance, there assem- 
bled. Dickens unquestionably derived in- 
spiration from Smollett and Fielding; nor 
is there any doubt but that Harte made 
a close study of Dickens. 

From which preamble we come to the 
statement; if you would study human na- 
ture on the road, you must simply go where 
men congregate and exchange ideas. The 
plots of nearly all Bret Harte 's mining 
stories are thus closely associated with the 
bar-rooms and taverns of the mining towns 
of his day. What would remain of any 

73 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

of Phillpott's charming stories of rural 
England, if you eliminated the bar-room 
of the village inn? In hospitality and 
generous living, the inns of the mining 
towns still keep up the old traditions. The 
card room and bar-room are places where 
men meet; to altogether avoid them from 
any pharisaical assumption of moral su- 
periority is to lose the chance of coming 
in contact with the leading citizen, philan- 
thropist, or eccentric character. 

In the old romances it must be admitted 
there is much brawling and heavy drink- 
ing, as well as unseemliness of conduct. 
Yet in spite of the fact that hotel bars 
and saloons abound in all the old mining 
towns, the writer throughout his travels 
and notwithstanding the intense heat, not 
only saw no person under the influence of 
liquor, but also never heard a voice raised 
in angry dispute. Moderation, decency and 
a kindly consideration for the rights of 
others seem habitual with these people. 

It is fifteen miles from Grass Valley to 
Smartsville, and I arrived at the Smarts- 
ville Hotel in time for the midday meal. 
Smartsville has ^'seen better days,*^ but 
still maintains a cheerful outlook on life. 
The population has dwindled from several 
thousand to about three hundred. It is, 

74 



GRASS VALLEY TO SMARTSVILLE 

however, the central point for quite an 
extensive agricultural and pastoral coun- 
try surrounding it. 

The swinging sign over the hotel bears 
the legend, ' ' Smartsville Hotel, John Pear- 
don, Propr/' The present proprietor is 
named ^^Peardon,'' but everyone addressed 
him as ^'Jim." Having established a 
friendly footing, I said: "Mr. Peardon, 
I notice the sign over the door reads John 
Peardon. How is it that they all call you 
^Jim?' '' ''Oh,'' he replied, ''John Pear- 
don was my father, / was born in this 
hotel;'' — another of the numerous in- 
stances that came under my observation 
of the way these people "stay where they 
are put." 

John Peardon was an Englishman. The 
British Isles furnished a very considerable 
percentage of the pioneers, the evidences 
whereof remain unto this day. The swing- 
ing signs over the hotels for one ; another, 
the prevalence in all the mining towns of 
Bass's pale ale. You will find it in the 
most unpretentious hotels and restaurants. 
An Englishman expects his ale or beer, as 
a matter of course, whether at the Equator 
or at the Arctic Circle. When I first ar- 
rived in California in 1868, I drifted down 
into the then sheep and cattle country in 

75 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

the lower end of Monterey County. An 
English family living on an isolated ranch 
sent home for a girl who had worked for 
them in the old country. Upon her arrival, 
the first question she asked was : * *How far 
is it to the church ? ' ' The second : ^ ^ Where 
can I get my beer ? ' ^ When informed there 
was no church within a hundred miles and 
that it was at least fifteen miles to the 
nearest saloon, the poor woman felt that 
she was indeed all abroad! Bereft at one 
blow of the Established Church and Eng- 
lish Ale, the solid ground seemed to have 
given way from under her feet. For her, 
these two particulars comprised the whole 
of the British Constitution. 

Smartsville possessed a sentimental in- 
terest for me, for the reason that in the 
sixties my father mined and taught a pri- 
vate school in an adjoining camp bearing 
the derogatory appellation ^ ' Sucker Flat. ' ' 
What mischance prompted this title will 
never now be known. In my father ^s time, 
it contained a population of nearly a thou- 
sand persons; and judging from the man- 
ner in which the gulch and the contiguous 
flat have been torn, scarred, burrowed into 
and tunneled under, if gold there was, most 
strenuous efforts had been made to bring 
it to light. 

76 



GRASS VALLEY TO SMAETSVILLE 

I asked if there was anyone in Smarts- 
ville who would be likely to remember my 
father, and was referred by Mr. Peardon 
to **Bob*' Beatty, who, he said, had lived 
in Smart sville all his life and knew every- 
body. As Mr. Beatty was within a stone's 
throw, at the Excelsior Store, I had no 
difficulty in finding him. Introducing my- 
self, I asked Mr. Beatty if he remembered 
my father. ^'To be sure I do,*' he ex- 
claimed, ''/ went to his school, and,'' 
laughing heartily, ^'well I remember a lick- 
ing he gave me ! ' ' He said that among the 
boys who attended that school, several in 
after years, as men, had become prominent 
in the history of the State. 

Mr. Beatty — now a pleasant, genial gen- 
tleman of fifty-two — very kindly walked 
with me to the brow of the hill command- 
ing a view of Sucker Flat, and pointed 
out the exact spot where the school had 
stood, for not a stick or a stone remains 
to mark the locus of the town — it is simply 
a name upon the map. 

I mention this incident as being another 
proof of the extraordinary hold the Sierra 
foot-hill country has upon the people who 
were born there, as well as upon those who 
have drifted there by force of circum- 
stances. It is forty-six or forty-seven years 

77 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

since my father conducted that school, yet 
I felt so sure from previous experiences 
there would be in Smartsville someone who 
remembered him, that I determined to in- 
clude it in my itinerary. 



78 



CHAPTER VIII 

SMARTSVILLE TO MARYSVILLE. 
SOME REFLECTIONS ON AUTO- 
MOBILES AND "HOBOES" 

EARLY the next morning I started 
for Marysville, the last leg in my 
journey, and a long twenty miles 
distant. I had been dreading the 
pull through the Sacramento Valley, hav- 
ing a lively recollection of my experience 
in the San Joaquin, on leaving Stockton. 
The day was sultry, making the heat still 
more oppressive. After leaving the foot- 
hills for good, I walked ten miles before 
reaching a tree, or anything that cast a 
shadow, if you except the telephone poles. 
For the first time I realized there was 
danger in walking in such heat, and even 
contemplated the shade of the telephone 
poles as a possibility ! Fortunately a light 
breeze sprang up — the fag end of the trade 
wind — and, though hot, it served to dispel 
that stagnation of the atmosphere which 
in sultry weather is so trying to the nervous 
system. Marysville is nearly one hundred 
miles due north of Stockton — of course, 
much farther by rail — and the same arid, 

79 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

treeless, inhospitable belt of country be- 
tween the cultivated area and the foot-hills 
apparently extends the whole distance. It 
is a country to avoid. 

About two miles short of Marysville, 
while enjoying the shade cast by the trees 
that border the levee of the Feather River, 
which skirts Marysville to the south, a man 
in an auto stopped and very kindly offered 
to give me a lift. I thanked him politely 
but declined. He seemed amazed. '^Why 
don't you ride when you canf he asked. 
^* Because I prefer to walk,'' I answered. 
This fairly staggered him. The idea of a 
man preferring to walk, and in such heat, 
was probably a novel experience, and 
served to deprive him of further speech. 
He simply sat and stared and I had passed 
him some twenty yards before he started 
his machine. 

A sturdy tramp walking in the middle of 
the road, who had witnessed the scene, 
shouted as he passed: ^'Why didn't yer 
ride wid de guy?" I replied as before, 
^ ^ Because I prefer to walk ; ' ' adding for his 
benefit, ''I've no use for autos." Where- 
upon he threw back his head and burst into 
peal after peal of such hearty laughter that, 
from pure contagion, I perforce joined in 
the chorus. In the days of Fielding and 

80 



SMAKTSVILLE TO MARYSVILLE 

Sam Johnson, this fellow would have been 
dubbed ^ ^ a lusty vagabond ; ' ' in the slangy 
parlance of today, he was a ^^ husky hobo," 
equipped as such, even to the tin can of the 
comic journals. To him, the humor of a 
brother tramp refusing a ride — in an auto- 
car, at that — appealed with irresistible 
force. 

To walk in the middle of the road is char- 
acteristic of the genuine tramp. There 
must be some occult reason for this pecul- 
iarity, since in a general way, it is far 
easier going on the margin. Perhaps it 
is because he commands a better view of 
either side, with a regard to the possible 
onslaught of dogs. There is something 
about a man with a pack on his back that 
infuriates the average dog, as I have on 
several occasions found to my annoyance. 
Eobert Louis Stevenson, in his whimsical 
and altogether delightful ^^ Travels with a 
Donkey,'' thus vents his opinion anent the 
dog question: 

* ^ I was much disturbed by the barking of 
a dog, an animal that I fear more than any 
wolf. A dog is vastly braver and is, be- 
sides, supported by a sense of duty. If you 
kill a wolf you meet with encouragement 
and praise, but if you kill a dog, the sacred 
rights of property and the domestic affec- 

81 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

tions come clamoring around you for 
redress. At the end of a fagging day, the 
sharp, cruel note of a dog's bark is in it- 
self a keen annoyance ; and to a tramp like 
myself, he represents the sedentary and 
respectable world in its most hostile form. 
There is something of the clergyman or the 
lawyer about this engaging animal; and if 
he were not amenable to stones, the boldest 
man would shrink from traveling a-foot. 
I respect dogs much in the domestic circle ; 
but on the highway or sleeping a-field, I 
both detest and fear them.'' 

I confess to a feeling of sympathy with 
the men we so indiscriminately brand with 
the contemptuous epithet, ^'hobo." In the 
first place, the road itself, with its accom- 
panying humors and adventures, forms a 
mutual and efficacious bond. How little we 
know of the "Knights of the Road," or 
the compelling circumstances that turned 
them adrift upon the world! "All sorts 
and conditions of men" are represented, 
from the college professor to the ex- 
pugilist. I have ' ' hit the ties ' ' in company 
with a so-called "hobo" who quoted Milton 
and Shakespeare by the yard, interspersed 
with exclamations appreciative of his en- 
joyment of the country through which we 
were passing. And once when on a tramp 

82 



SMAETSVILLE TO MAKYSVILLE 

along the coast from San Francisco to 
Monterey, I fell in at Point San Pedro with 
a professional, who bitterly regretted the 
coming of the Ocean Shore Kailway, then 
in process of construction. '^For years,'' 
said he, * ^ I have been in the habit of making 
this trip at regular intervals, on my way 
south. I had the road to myself and thor- 
oughly enjoyed the peaceful beauty of the 
scene ; but now this railroad has come with 
its mushroom towns, and all the charm has 
gone. Never again for me! This is my 
last trip!'' 

I have not the slightest doubt that sheer 
love of the road — and only a tramp knows 
what those words mean — is the controlling 
influence which keeps fifty per cent of the 
fraternity its willing slaves. What was 
Senhouse — that most fascinating of 
Maurice Hewlett 's creations — but a tramp ? 
A gentleman tramp, if you please, but still 
a tramp. What is the reason that Senhouse 
appeals so strongly to the imagination? 
Simply because he loved Nature. And in 
this matter-of-fact period when poetry is 
dead and even a by-word, the man who 
loves Nature, if not a poet, at least has 
poetry in his soul. In a decadent age sym- 
bolized by the tango and the problem 
play, it is at least an encouraging sign 

83 



A TKAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

for the future that such a character as Sen- 
house came to the jaded reader of the 
erotic fiction of the day, as a whiff of sea 
breeze on a parched plain, and was hailed 
with corresponding delight. 

Of course there are ^^ hoboes'^ and 
^'hoboes,'' as in any other profession, but 
so far as my experience goes, the ^^hobo'' 
is an idealist. Of the many reasons he has 
taken to the road, not the least is the free- 
dom from the shackles of convention and 
the ^ ' Gradgrind ' ^ methods of an utilitarian 
and materialistic age. Nor is he a 
pessimist. Whatever his trouble, the road 
has eased him of his burden and made him a 
philosopher. 

Thoreau, writing in the middle of the 
last century, deplores the fact that in his 
day, as now, but few of his countrymen took 
any pleasure in walking, and that very 
rarely one encountered a person with any 
real appreciation of the beauty of Nature, 
which if he could but see it, lay at his very 
door. Speaking for himself and companion 
in his rambles, he says: ^^We have felt 
that we almost alone hereabouts (Concord, 
Massachusetts) practiced this noble art; 
though, to tell the truth, at least if their 
own assertions are to be received, most of 
my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, 

84 



SMARTSVILLE TO MARYSVILLE 

as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can 
buy the requisite leisure, freedom and in- 
dependence which are the capital in this 
profession. It comes only by the grace of 
God. It requires a direct dispensation 
from Heaven to become a Walker. Ambu- 
lator nascitur non fit. Some of my towns- 
men, it is true, can remember and have 
described to me, walks which they took 
ten years ago, in which they were so 
blessed as to lose themselves for half an 
hour in the woods." 

Who is there who walks habitually, who 
does not know the man who tells you of 
the walks he ''used to take?" You have 
known him, say a dozen years. During all 
that time, to your knowledge, his walks 
have practically been limited by the dis- 
tance to his office and back from the ferry 
boat. When you urge him for perhaps the 
twentieth time, to essay a tramp with you, 
he will say he would like to very much, but 
unfortunately so-and-so renders it impos- 
sible. And then looking you in the eye, he 
will tell you how much he enjoyed tramps 
he took, of twenty or thirty miles — but that 
was before you knew him ! As if a Walker 
with a big ''W," as Thoreau writes the 
word, would remain satisfied with the mem- 
ory of walks of twenty years ago ! 

85 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

I had heard of the ''Marysville Buttes,'' 
as one has heard of Madagascar, but their 
actual appearance on the landscape came as 
the greatest surprise of the trip. As I first 
caught sight of them when within a few 
miles of Marysville, they gave me a distinct 
thrill. I could hardly believe my eyes and 
thought of mirages; for those pointed, 
isolated peaks rise precipitously from the 
floor of the Sacramento valley; in fact, 
their bases are only a mile or two from the 
river. They have every indication, even 
to the unscientific eye, of having been up- 
heaved by volcanic action. Perhaps that 
accounts for the uncanny impression they 
impart. 

A walk of twenty-one or two miles with- 
out food, in any kind of weather, is apt to 
produce an aching void. My first efforts on 
reaching Marysville were therefore di- 
rected to finding the sort of place where I 
could eat in comfort. The emphasis which 
Eobert Louis Stevenson employs when 
upon this most important quest would be 
amusing were it not also a vital problem in 
your own case. There is nothing humorous 
per se in hunger or thirst ; at any rate, not 
until both are appeased. With the black 
coffee and cigar, you can tip your chair at 
a comfortable angle against the wall, and 

86 



SMARTSVILLE TO MARYSVILLE 

watching the delicate wreaths of smoke in 
their spiral upward course, previous to 
final disintegration, smile at the persistent 
energy with which an hour ago you sys- 
tematically worked the town from end to 
end, anxiously peering in the windows of 
uninviting restaurants until you finally 
found that little ''hole in the wall" for 
which you were looking, with the bottle of 
Tipo Chianti, the succulent chops and the 
big red tomatoes, in the window. It is 
always to be found if you have the 
necessary perseverance. The genial Italian 
proprietor, with the innate politeness of 
his countrymen, will not bore you with 
questions as to where you have come from, 
whither you are going, or what you are 
walking for, anyway, etc., etc. He accepts 
you just as you are — haversack, camera, 
big stick and all, hanging them without 
comment on the hook behind your head; 
while you simply tell him you want a good 
dinner, the best he can give you, but to in- 
clude the chops, tomatoes and Tipo Chianti. 
With a smile and that artistic flip of the 
napkin under his arm, which only he can 
achieve, he sets about giving his orders. 
Later on, after a hot bath, a shave and the 
luxury of a clean shirt, feeling at peace 
with the world and refreshed in body and 

87 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

soul, you set out to examine the town in 
comfort and at your leisure. 

In the mining days, Marysville ranked 
next to San Francisco, Sacramento and 
possibly Stockton, not only in interest but 
in actual volume of business transacted. It 
was the natural outlet for all the foot-hill 
country tributary to Grass Valley, Nevada 
City, and Smartsville. There the miners 
outfitted and there, when they had ^^made 
their pile,'^ they began the process — subse- 
quently completed in Sacramento and San 
Francisco — of reducing it to a negligible 
quantity. That, of course, is merely a 
reminiscence, but as the center of one of 
the most prosperous grain and fruit-raising 
sections of the Sacramento Valley, Marys- 
ville is still a place of considerable import- 
ance. The old town is very much in 
evidence; so much so that, in spite of the 
numerous modern buildings, the general 
effect produced is of age, as age is under- 
stood in California. I doubt if San 
Francisco before the fire, or Sacramento 
today, could show as many substantial, 
solid buildings dating back to the fifties. 



88 



CHAPTER IX 

BAYARD TAYLOR AND THE 

CALIFORNIA OF FORTY-NINE. 

BRET HARTE AND HIS 

LITERARY PIONEER 

CONTEMPORARIES 

A ND here in old Marysville, the county 
/^L seat of Yuba County and situ- 
/ ^ ated on its extreme western 
^L J^ boundary, I ended my tramp, 
having covered a distance of approxi- 
mately two hundred and fifty miles, ex- 
clusive of retracements. The ideal time to 
visit the Sierra foot-hills would be in the 
late Spring or early Autumn. I was com- 
pelled to grasp the opportunity when it of- 
fered or forego the pleasure altogether. 
Nor is it necessary, of course, to walk ; the 
roads, whilst generally speaking not classed 
as good going for automobiles, are at least 
passable. I was surprised at the number 
of high grade machines in evidence, in all 
the towns of importance mentioned in this 
narrative. There remains also the alter- 
native of a good saddle horse, or, better 
still, a light wagon with camping outfit, 
thus rendering hotels unnecessary, the 

89 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

elimination of which would probably pay 
the hire of horse and wagon. 

Half a century is a long period. You 
could probably count on the fingers of one 
hand persons now living in the Sierra foot- 
hills who have any recollection of ever hav- 
ing seen Bret Harte. It must also be 
remembered that in the fifties his reputa- 
tion as an author had not been established. 
Of all that group of brilliant young men 
who visited the mines in early days, which 
included for a brief space ^^ Orpheus C. 
Kerr^' and ^^Artemus Ward/^ I can well 
imagine that Bret Harte attracted the least 
attention. It is extremely doubtful to my 
mind if he ever had much actual experience 
of the mining camps. To a man of his 
vivid imagination, a mere suggestion af- 
forded a plot for a story; even the Laird's 
Toreadors, it will be recalled, were com- 
mercially successful when purely imagin- 
ary; he only failed when he subsequently 
studied the real thing in Spain. 

Bret Harte was a man who in a primitive 
community might well escape notice. In 
appearance, manner and training, he was 
the exact antithesis of Mark Twain. He 
was a student before he was a writer and 
possessed the student's shy reserve. I can 
well imagine him, a slight boyish figure, 

90 



THE CALIFOENIA OF FORTY-NINE 

flitting from camp to camp, wrapped in his 
own thoughts, keeping his own counsel. 
Yet he alone of that little band, unless you 
except Mark Twain, possessed the divine 
spark we call ^^ genius/' Centuries after 
the names of all the rest are buried in 
oblivion, Bret Harte's stories of the Ar- 
gonauts in the mining towns of California 
will remain the classics they have already 
become. 

Yet as before stated, when once I got 
fairly started on the road, the pioneers 
themselves and their worthy descendants 
absorbed my interest and assumed the 
center of the stage to the exclusion, for the 
time being, of the romancers; who, after 
all, each in his own fashion, depicted only 
what most appealed to him in the charac- 
ters of these same men and their con- 
temporaries. Bayard Taylor in his 
interesting work **E1 Dorado,'' the first 
edition of which appeared in 1850, thus 
states his opinion of the men of '49 : 

** Abundance of gold does not always 
beget, as moralists tell us, a grasping and 
avaricious spirit. The principles of hos- 
pitality were as faithfully observed in the 
rude tents of the diggers, as they could be 
by the thrifty farmers of the North and 
West. The cosmopolitan cast of char- 

91 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

acter in California, resulting in the com- 
mingling of so many races, and the 
primitive mode of life, gave a character of 
good-fellowship to all its members; and in 
no part of the world have I ever seen help 
more freely given to the needy, or more 
ready co-operation in any human prop- 
osition. Personally, I can safely say that 
I never met with such unvarying kindness 
from comparative strangers." 

That last sentence also spelt the literal 
truth in my experience. Even the dogs 
were kindly disposed and though I carried 
a **big stick,'' except by way of companion- 
ship and as an aid in climbing, I might 
safely have left it at home. And while at 
times I walked through a wild, mountainous 
and almost deserted country, the idea of 
possible danger never occurred to me. 
When finally one encountered a human 
being, he invariably proved a courteous, 
obliging and companionable personage to 
meet. 

Bayard Taylor attended in September 
and the beginning of October, 1849, the 
convention at Monterey, which gave to 
California its first, and in the opinion of 
many, its best constitution. He closes his 
review of the proceedings with these force- 
ful and prophetic words : 

92 



THE CALIFORNIA OF FORTY-NINE 

* ^ Thus we have another splendid example 
of the ease and security with which people 
can be educated to govern themselves. 
From that chaos whence under a despotism 
like the Austrian, would spring the most 
frightful excesses of anarchy and crime, 
a population of freemen peacefully and 
quietly develops the highest form of civil 
order — the broadest extent of liberty 
and security. Governments, bad and cor- 
rupt as many of them are, and imperfect 
as they all must necessarily be, neverthe- 
less at times exhibit scenes of true moral 
sublimity. What I have today witnessed 
has so impressed me ; and were I a believer 
in omens, I would augur from the tranquil 
beauty of the evening — from the clear sky 
and the lovely sunset hues on the waters of 
the bay — more than all, from the joyous 
expression of every face I see, a glorious 
and prosperous career for the State of 
California. ' ' 

Southern California, by which is under- 
stood all of the State south of the Tehach- 
api Mountains, was mostly settled by and 
is still to a great extent the objective point 
of people from the East and Middle West. 
Most of them came in search of health and 
brought a competency sufficient for their 
needs. When President Wilson, then 

93 



A TRAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

Governor of New Jersey, visited California 
in 1911, he came over the southern route 
to Los Angeles. Addressing a Pasadena 
audience he said: ^^I am much disap- 
pointed when I see you. I expected to find 
a highly individualized people, characters 
developed by struggle and mutual effort; 
but I find you the same people we have at 
home,^' and more, to the same effect. 
Subsequently, Governor Wilson delivered 
an address at the Greek Theater, Berkeley, 
before the students of the University of 
California. At its close, Mr. Maslin 
mounted the stage, a copy of the paper 
containing the account of the Pasadena 
speech in his hands, and asked the Gov- 
ernor if he was correctly reported ; to which 
he replied in the affirmative. ^ ^ Governor, ' ' 
said Mr. Maslin, you came into the State at 
the wrong gate!'^ ^^Gate? gate? — what 
gateT' inquired the Governor. ''You 
should have come through Emigrant Gap, 
through which most of the emigrants from 
*49 and on entered the State. Now, Gov- 
ernor, the people you saw at Pasadena 
never suffered the trials of a pioneer's life, 
they are not knit together by the memory of 
mutual struggles and privations. When 
you come to the State again, come through 
Emigrant Gap. Let me know when you 

94 



THE CALIFORNIA OF FOBTY-NINB 

come, and I will introduce you to a breed 
of men the world has never excelled." 
With the smile with which millions have 
since become familiar, Governor Wilson 
grasped the hand of the pioneer and said : 
*'When I come again, as I feel sure I shall, 
I shall let you know." 

The following morning I took the train 
for my home in Alameda. As I sat and 
meditated on the scenes I had witnessed 
and the character of the people I had met, 
it was borne in upon me that this had been 
the most interesting as well as enjoyable 
experience of my life. Already the tem- 
porary discomforts produced by heat and 
soiled garments had faded into insignifi- 
cance, and assumed a most trivial aspect 
when I reviewed the journey as a whole. 
They were part of the game. To again 
quote '^Trilby," tramping ^4s not all beer 
and skittles." Your true tramp learns 
to take things as he finds them and 
never to expect or ask for the impos- 
sible. He will drink the wine of the 
country, even when sour, without a gri- 
mace; pass without grumbling a sleep- 
less night; plod through dust ankle deep, 
without a murmur; there is but one vul- 
nerable feature in his armor, and with 
Achilles, it is his heel! And it is literally 

95 



A TEAMP THROUGH THE BRET HARTE COUNTRY 

the heel that is the sensitive spot. I will 
venture the assertion that the long-distance 
tramper — not even excepting Brother Wes- 
ton — who has not at some time or another 
suffered from sore heels, does not exist. 
The tramp's feet are his means of locomo- 
tion; on their condition he bestows an 
anxiety and care which far surpass that of 
the man in the automobile, with all his com- 
plicated machinery to inspect. 

Eemains then, the memory of the 
delicious, faint, cool, morning breeze, 
gently stirring the pine needles; the aro- 
matic odor of forest undergrowth; the 
murmur of the stream hurrying down the 
mountain gorge to mingle its pure waters 
with those of the muddy Sacramento, far 
away in the great valley below; the deep 
awe-inspiring canons of the American, 
Stanislaus and Mokelumne Rivers; and 
back of all, the azure summits of the Sierra 
Nevada. 

Remains also, the memory of the kindly- 
disposed, courteous and open-hearted in- 
habitants of the old mining towns. But 
more forcibly than all else combined — for 
it seems to epitomize the whole — the 
glamour of the towns themselves appeals 
with an irresistible fascination, that no 
poor words of mine can adequately express. 

96 



APPENDIX 

VIEWS OF THE BRET 
HARTE COUNTRY 




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PLATE IX 

Main Hoist of the Utica Mine, 

Angel's Camp, Situated on the Summit 

of a Hill Overlooking the Town 




PLATE X 

The Stanislaus River, Near 

Tuttletown, ''Running in a Deep and 

Splendid Canon" 




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Main Street, Sonora, ''So Shaded 

by Trees That Buildings 

Are Half-hidden" 




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PLATE XV 

Main Street, San Andreas, 

''During the Mid-day Heat, Almost 

Deserted" 




PLATE XVI 
Metropolitan Hotel, San Andreas; 
in the Bar-room of "Which Occurred the 
"Jumping Frog" Incident 




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Middle Fork of the American Kiver, 

Near Auburn, and Half a Mile Above Its 

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PLATE XXIII 

A Bit of Picturesque Nevada 

City, Embracing the Homes of Its 

Leading Citizens 



HERE ENDS A TRAMP THROUGH THE 
BRET HARTE COUNTRY BY THOMAS 
DYKES BEASLEY. PUBLISHED BY PAUL 
ELDER AND COMPANY AND PRINTED 
FOR THEM AT THEIR TOMOYE PRESS 
IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF JOHN 
SWART, IN THE YEAR NINETEEN 
HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN. 



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